BOTH the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Army are waiting for the official guidelines of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in determining the election watchlist areas and hotspots relative to the coming October 30 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE).
Police Regional Office (PRO)-6 Director Brigadier General Sidney Villaflor said there is a need to update the previous list of EWAS based on the current situation at the barangay level.
The guidelines of Comelec will be our basis in the monitoring of armed groups in Western Visayas, Villaflor said.
Villaflor assured that the police in the region will be vigilant as the election nears.
He said they may not come up with a list based on the previous records of EWAS and hotspot areas.
"We will be dwelling primarily on the current. We will be off balance if we based on the old records," Villaflor added.
Brigadier General Orlando Edralin, 303rd Infantry Brigade commander, also said that, like what the PNP presented during the Regional Peace and Order Council meeting at the Negrense Hotel in Bacolod City on Wednesday, June 14, the basis is the previous evaluations, and the Comelec regional office is already calling for a meeting so that they could come up with the overall security situations in the whole region.
"It's hard to speculate but we expect that there are possible Election hotspots and election watchlist areas in the region and in the province," Edralin said.
Meanwhile, Edralin is asking the cooperation of the candidates for the coming BSKE not to give in to the rebels' alleged imposition of the "permit to campaign and permit to win" in the coming elections.
"And with that, their support will be reduced for the rebels to thrive and sustain their operation," Edralin said.
"With the coordination of the Comelec and the PNP, we will be evaluating if what is the recent and updated situation in Negros Occidental," he added.*