MANILA — Murder cases in Metro Manila increased by 60 percent in the first half of President Rodrigo Duterte's term compared to the last 3 years of the previous administration of former President Benigno Aquino III, the head of the region's police said Tuesday.

There were 4,295 murder cases in Metro Manila from July 2016 to September 2019, up from 2,682 cases from April 2013 to June 2016, said the region's police chief Maj. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar.

"Nakita natin, 'yong first 6 months of this administration, doon talaga tumaas iyong mga murder cases and we know for a fact na itong mga grupo, itong mga sindikato, we have information na sila talaga nagpapatayan," he said during a regional Peace and Order Council meeting.

(We saw that in the first 6 months of this administration, the murder cases spiked because we know for a fact that these groups, these syndicates, were killing off each other.)

He also attributed the murder rate to police scalawags "who are trying to silence these groups."

Eleazar also stressed that the total crime incidence went down by 62 percent to 48,835 cases in the first 3 years of Duterte administration from 131,839 cases during the last 3 years of the Aquino government.

This figure includes cases of homicide, physical injuries, rape, robbery, theft and carjacking, as seen in the table below.

-- With reports from April Rafales and Zhander Cayabyab, ABS-CBN News