Prov'l Comelec asks for additional PNP, AFP personnel
In its bid to showcase the 2007 May polls as honest, orderly and peaceful, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) provincial office requested its central office to approve the deployment of additional police and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) personnel in the different municipalities particularly those with intense political rivalries.
Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Elizabeth Doronila, who is the concurrent City Election Supervisor, said she had requested for the deployment of additional 288 police personnel and 211 personnel from the AFP. The additional force will be fielded in areas with intense political rivalry and those areas having the presence of insurgents. Other forces will be placed on police stations that lack personnel.
It is the Commission en banc which will approve the deployment of additional police and AFP personnel in every area. The deployment of the additional personnel will be based on the urgency and the availability of personnel.
This early, Doronila is not certain if the Comelec central office would entirely approve their request.
The 288 additional police personnel will be deployed in the towns of Estancia, Carles, Miag-ao and other towns in the first district of Iloilo. The 211 AFP personnel preferably from the Philippine Army will be distributed in the towns of Alimodian, Calinog, Igbaras, Janiuay, Lambunao, Leon and San Enrique.
Doronila said they need to post additional police personnel in the town of Estancia to at least reach an ideal ratio of 2:1 or two police personnel for every one polling precinct. The inadequacy of police personnel will also be addressed by the clustering of polling precincts.
The town of Estancia was placed in the priority list of the Comelec and the PNP because of the intense political rivalry between incumbent mayor Rene Cordero and retired police Chief Supt. Restituto Mosqueda. There were previous election-related incidents involving the two parties. Recently, the camp of Cordero filed a disqualification case against Mosqueda for lack of the prescribed residency for a mayoralty candidate.
In the case of the municipality of Carles, Doronila justified her request for additional police personnel because of the security and safety of the election inspectors and same time the proper handling of ballot boxes from the island barangays to the town proper.
There are 18 island-barangays out of the 33 barangays in Carles. The ballot boxes coming from these island barangays should be guarded. The Comelec has to make preventive measures that these ballot boxes will reach the mainland and will not be snatched by any group, said Doronila.
Meanwhile, Doronila clarified that the AFP personnel will be stationed in areas believed to be under the influence of the New People's Army, however they will not be posted in polling precincts like the PNP personnel.