PRO6 goes on full alert status for today’s polls
The police in Western Visayas is on a full alert status to ensure an honesty, orderly and peaceful barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan election in the region today.
“We are intensifying our security measures,” Chief Supt. Cipriano Querol Jr. said yesterday.
The Police Regional 6 raised its alert status to full alert starting Sunday to ensure that enough number of police personnel are deployed for election duties.
Three hundred fifteen barangays in Western Visayas have been identified by the Regional Joint Security Coordinating Council as election watchlist areas.
Of the number, 89 are under Category 1, which means these barangays have a history of intense political rivalry.
Two hundred twenty-six are under Category 2 or areas that have an active presence of insurgents.
In Negros Occidental, 126 villages have been identified as watchlist areas – 26 under Category 1 and 100 in Category 2. Capiz follows with 77 barangays while Iloilo province has 75.
Querol said the killing of reelectionist councilman Rolando Lopines has yet to be determined whether election-related.
He said that pending the result of the investigation on the Lopines case, there is no election-related violent incident in Western Visayas so far.
In the 2004 and 2007 barangay and SK elections, PRO6 recorded three and seven ERVIs, respectively.
Almost 62,000 aspirants in Western Visayas have filed their certificates of candidacy, including more than 4,000 for village head; 32,000 for councilman; 4,600 for SK chairman; and 19,000 for SK councilman.
Under Threat
Meanwhile, 17 “under threat” candidates running for various positions have requested for security from the Commission on Election 6.
The COMELEC 6 has approved six requests since the start of the election period.
Antique province has most number of requests, with seven followed by Iloilo, four; Iloilo City and Negros Occidental, two each; Aklan and Capiz, one each.
Records show that candidates who requested for security are those who received death threats, encountered harassments and other election-related threats.
Once the request is approved, the COMELEC through the Philippine National Police provides one security detail for every candidate until the election period ends on November 10.*with reports from MGC
