THE Commission on Elections (Comelec) placed the municipalities of Tubaran and Malabang in Lanao del Sur under its control due to threats in the upcoming national and local elections, Philippine National Police (PNP) Directorate for Operations Major Valeriano de Leon said on Monday, April 18, 2022.
De Leon said the threats in the said areas were coming from the local terrorist groups, particularly in Mindanao and Bangsamoro regions, and they continue to monitor these to prevent any eventualities that will hamper the conduct of a peaceful election on May 9, 2022.
He said they have already deployed Special Action Force platoons in the said municipalities for intensified security operations.
He said they are also in constant coordination with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the monitoring of other areas with imminent threats, including from the communist rebels, who are known for extorting campaign fees from candidates.
De Leon said the Comelec is also looking at upgrading the classification of other areas based on threats and other election-related incidents.
Earlier, the Comelec released the list of 114 areas considered areas of concern, based on the recommendation by the PNP.
Areas under the election hotspot list have four categories -- green, yellow, orange, and red.
Green refers to areas that do not have security concerns and are generally peaceful and orderly, while yellow are areas of concern, which means that these have a history of election-related incidents in the last elections, possible employment of partisan armed groups, the occurrence of politically motivated election-related incidents and had been previously declared under Comelec control.
Orange, meanwhile, means areas of immediate concern where there is a serious armed threat, while red means areas of grave concern, which exhibit combined factors under the yellow category with serious armed threats that may warrant the motu proprio declaration of Comelec control.
Meanwhile, PNP Chief Dionardo Carlos said they will coordinate with presidential aspirant Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, who earlier claimed they monitored efforts to destabilize the upcoming polls.
Lacson said the information is continuously being validated and efforts to prevent it from materializing are also in place.
“We will get the details from Senator Lacson to check on it. So far for the monitoring of the election, there have been no major reports of that nature. So we will get it from Senator Ping,” said Carlos. (SunStar Philippines)