“While there were some difficulties encountered in the delivery of election materials to polling centers due to transportation and weather issues and minor problems in the relay of information due to poor signal reception and bad weather condition, the local Plebiscite to ratify Republic Act 11259, held in the province of Palawan on March 13, 2021, was generally peaceful and orderly with no untoward incident reported” said PNP Officer-In-Charge Police Lieutenant General Guillermo Lorenzo T. Eleazar.
Eleazar disclosed that a PNP-COMELEC-AFP Joint Task Force was activated composed of police units from the Palawan Police Provincial Office, Puerto Princesa City Police Office, PNP Maritime Group and Regional Mobile Force Battalion of MIMAROPA and military units from the AFP Western Command and Philippine Coast Guard.
The Philippine National Police deployed a total of 920 police personnel to provide security to registered voters and election officials in 487 polling centers in 367 Barangay of the 23 municipalities across mainland Palawan and the island municipalities.
“Local communist terrorist groups and its front organizations and other domestic threat groups were effectively rendered immobile by proactive security measures, and were actively prevented from engaging in any form of prohibited actions that threatened the otherwise peaceful and orderly plebiscite”, Eleazar said.
“Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, the biggest challenge that we faced is the compliance to IATF protocols during mass gatherings which includes the expected crowds in the voting process. To address this, we crafted a NEW NORMAL PHYSICAL RESPONSE together with the COMELEC designed to ensure physical distancing and smooth flow of the voters”, Eleazar added. (PNP-PIO)
