MANILA, Philippines — A total of 15,000 police personnel will be deployed in Metro Manila on the day of the midterm elections on May 13, the National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) said on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters at the sidelines of the National Capital Region-Regional Security Control Center Command Conference in Taguig City, NCRPO chief Maj. Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said that the deployed personnel will maintain the police’s anti-criminality efforts on the day of the elections.
“The PNP (Philippine National Police) will be deploying around 15,000 personnel so hindi lang dun sa mga polling centers, hindi lang sa mga canvassing area, to maintain also itong anti-criminality efforts natin,” he said.
“Dito kasi sa atin, lahat is being highlighted in NCR kaya hindi tayo pwedeng mag-relax dito so, based on experience naman, meron tayong templates na sinusunod and the PNP and the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) have it,” he added.
Military support
Brigadier General Cristobal Zaragoza, commander of the Joint Task Force in NCR, expressed full cooperation with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and the PNP in its security plan for the upcoming May elections.
“The Joint Task Force-NCR (National Capital Region) will just support the Comelec in ensuring that the election is credible and honest,” Zaragoza told reporters.
“I guess and I pray that we are already prepared…the elaborate preparation of the PNP, where we will only support them because we will just provide area security,” he added.
Zaragoza further noted that the AFP personnel tasked to augment police officers in the midterm polls “have enough experience from the past elections.”
“We have enough experience from the past elections. I’m used to elections in the rural areas, from my standard, this will not be a big challenge because among the challenges that we faced before in Mindanao is how to transport and bring back the election paraphernalia, the threats of the NPA (New People’s Army), I guess the NPAs will not got down here (Metro Manila) because they will just be losing more credibility if they’ll sabotage the elections,” he added.
Data from the Office of the Regional Election Director in the NCR shows that there are over 7 million voters in the region.
The midterm election will take place on May 13, 2019 where the winners will take their government posts on June 30, 2019, midway the term of President Rodrigo Duterte. /je/muf