ILOILO CITY — Fifty of the 476 barangays in the province of Capiz are being closely monitored by the Capiz Police Provincial Office (CPPO) this May 14 polls, a police official here said.
In an interview, Senior Superintendent Samuel Nacion, director of the CPPO, said the 50 barangays have been identified as election watchlist areas (EWAS) at the provincial level. Of the number, two are under category 3; 28 under category 2 and the rest are category 1.
Category 1 includes villages with previous election-related incidents or those with intense political rivalry; category 2 has problems on internal security and affected by communist –terrorists while category 3 has a combination of both categories.
Meanwhile, at the regional level, only 17 villages in Capiz have been placed under EWAS. These are barangays that were validated together with the Philippine Army.
Over the weekend, the Regional Joint Security Control Center, however, increased the EWAS to 17 from the previous 15 barangays. These already included Brgy. Bato Bato in Mambusao town where the house of one candidate was strafed and in Brgy. Lawaan in Roxas City where a re-electionist punong barangay (village chief) was gunned down.
Nacion said the death of re-electionist punong barangay Elvis Asis, 51, was not election-related but more of a personal grudge.
He explained that officially, they follow the regional data but their working number is based on the provincial data. He emphasized the importance to “secure” a bigger number rather than just limit to what was identified by the regional level.
Nonetheless, he said that Philippine National Police personnel have been fully deployed. Capiz has 307 augmentation forces from the Police Regional Office and has one company from the Regional Mobile Force Battalion serving as a quick reaction force.
As of posting time, Nacion said they have not monitored cases of “active violence”. They have not recorded cases of vote buying, he added. (Perla Lena/PNA)
