CEBU CITY — At least 33 Cebu City policemen will be reshuffled due to their filial connections with candidates for the May 14 synchronized Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections.
Cebu City Police Office (CCPO) Director Senior Supt. Joel Doria said in an interview Tuesday that they are just waiting for the soft and hard copies of the final list of candidates from the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to determine if these 33 personnel really need to be reassigned.
However, Doria said these police officers would no longer be reassigned outside the city, but would only be transferred to another station where they do not have relatives running in the elections.
“We have to reshuffle as we need to be impartial in the upcoming elections,” Doria said.
“Our initial recommendation was to have them (police personnel) reassigned temporarily outside Cebu City. However, we saw that it is okay for them to be transferred only to another station in the city. We will immediately reshuffle them as soon as we get the Comelec’s list.”
Doria assured that the reshuffling will not affect the CCPO’s overall security preparations for the upcoming polls.
“No, this won’t affect our overall security preparations. The security preparations are all in place. We have anticipated that issue,” Doria said.
The Police Regional Office in Central Visayas (PRO-7), meanwhile, has asked the CCPO to recommend 500 personnel to be deployed to Cebu Province.
Doria said he has already submitted a list of 500 CCPO personnel who can be deployed to augment the forces of the Cebu Provincial Police Office during the SK and Barangay elections.
He said Chief Supt. Robert Quenery, PRO-7 Director, will decide on who among the 500 will be deployed to the province. The augmentation force from the CCPO will be deployed a day before the elections. ( Luel Galarpe with reports from Bebie Jane Casipong/PNA)
