PNP poll task forces up in Pampanga, Ecija

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—The Central Luzon police have formed special task groups in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija a few weeks after these provinces were included in the list of 15 “high risk” areas for the May 2013 elections.

Each Regional Special Operations Task Group (RSOTG) has been assigned with 300 troops gathered from provincial commands and the regional public safety battalions to ensure safe elections, said Chief Insp. Oliver Montero, head of an intelligence team in the regional police’s intelligence division.

Senior Supt. Noli Taliño and Senior Supt. Wendy Rosario, chief of the regional police’s operations and administration,

respectively, head the RSOTG in Pampanga and Nueva Ecija, Montero said.

Both will be based at the regional headquarters in Camp Olivas in this Pampanga capital.

Taliño said the Philippine National Police and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) classified the two Central Luzon provinces, as well as Maguindanao, Abra, Pangasinan, Masbate, Samar, Lanao del Sur, Ilocos Sur, Basilan, La Union, Cavite, Cagayan, Batangas and Misamis Occidental as priority provinces for the elections based on how these fared in various factors.

These include having histories of of election-related violence, presence of intense political rivalry and threat groups, and number of loose firearms and organized criminal groups.

Taliño said some 2,700 “unrenewed, expired or wanted” firearms were recorded in Pampanga. Senior Supt. R’win Pagkalinawan, provincial police director, confirmed this.

Taliño asked reporters not to refer to the “priority provinces” as “hot spots” or “areas of concerns.”

He said a province that lands in the priority list means it would receive “focus on security preparations.”

The Central Luzon police or the provincial police cannot remove Pampanga from the priority list because the selection was made at the national level of the PNP and DILG, said lawyer Lydia Pangilinan, provincial election supervisor.

The Commission on Elections was expected to come out with an election watch list of areas of concern before the campaign period starts in January 2013.

Pagkalinawan said the anticrime efforts of the Pampanga police would not be hampered because only 70 (6 percent) of 1,100 policemen in the province would be assigned to the RSOTG.

Policemen securing elected officials would be recalled to their mother units on or before Jan. 13, 2013, Taliño said.

Elected officials and candidates will not be allowed to carry firearms during the campaign period. Their private security aides may carry guns only after the Comelec issues them permits, said Pangilinan. Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon