THE Philippine National Police (PNP) has not recorded any major untoward incident during the Holy Week break last week, PNP Chief Dionardo Carlos said on Monday, April 18, 2022.
Carlos said the observance of the Holy Week has been generally peaceful, with no major untoward incident, aside from the vehicular accident in Benguet on Thursday, April 14, that injured one person and the death due to drowning of an Indian tourist in Zambales on Good Friday, April 15.
He said from April 10 to 17, a total of 17,896 violators have been apprehended for not following the minimum public health standards (MPHS), particularly the wearing of face masks and the observance of physical distancing.
“The entire nation marks another safe and meaningful observance of the Holy Week,” said Carlos.
Carlos said they beefed up police deployment in tourist spots, religious sites, major thoroughfares and ports to ensure immediate assistance to the public should it be necessary, as well as to maintain peace and order and the MPHS amid the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
He said the PNP will continue the conduct of security operations, especially for the upcoming national and local elections on May 9.
“Well, we are ready. Actually, yun nga ang sabi ko nga kaninang umaga, monitoring na lang kami at saka tweaking depending kung ano ang situation on the ground pero basically, the deployment is nandiyan na, magdadagdag kami ng tao, ‘yung situation on the ground okay naman,” said Carlos.
(Well, we are ready. We are just monitoring and doing some tweaking depending on the situation on the ground, but basically, the deployment is already three, we just need to beef up the personnel. The situation on the ground is also okay.)
With the orders from Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, Carlos said they are closely monitoring possible cases of vote buying.
The PNP has earlier identified 114 areas of concern for the upcoming elections.
These areas either have existing or past election-related incidents, intense political rivalry or are under the threat of communist rebels who may cause chaos or be used by politicians for their advantage in the upcoming polls.
“We are after the security. We are making sure that ‘yung pulis namin ay apolitical, non-partisan (our police are apolitical, non-partisan). Yun ‘yung importante sa amin na kami ay tatayo ng tama, tuwid at gagawa ng tama (What’s important is for us to do what is right and just),” said Carlos.
“So ganun din po ‘yung hinihingi namin sa taumbayan. ‘Yung boboto gawin lang din po nila ‘yung tama. Bumoto sila sa ng gusto nila at kami sisiguraduhin namin na kayo ay makakaboto, hindi kayo maimpluwensiyahan,” he added.
(So that’s what we are also asking from the public. When you vote, do what is right. Vote based on who you like and we will make sure that you will be able to vote without pressure.) (SunStar Philippines)