More Marines deployed in Palawan town as tensions grips area

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PUERTO PRINCESA CITY – The Western Command has deployed an additional contingent of Marines in the town of Bataraza following a still-unresolved shooting incident Friday, as tension continued to grip the Muslim-dominated town near the southern tip of Palawan.
Provincial Commission on Elections (Comelec) Supervisor Orlando Ba-alan said additional forces from the 3rd Marine Brigade and the Philippine National Police (PNP) were deployed in Bataraza to quell potential violence between two warring camps for the town’s mayoralty post.

“So far, we have relative control of the situation. So far everything is going well,” Ba-alan said.

Reports from several residents in the municipality indicated a slow turnout of voters in the area.

In Igang-igang, the village where two people were killed in a shooting incident Friday night occurred, some 100 Palaw-an natives who fled their village following the shooting have reportedly returned, he said.
In other parts of the province, reports received by the Comelec indicated a breakdown of PCOS machines in at least three places in the province, including the capital of Puerto Princesa City where the machines stopped reading the ballots after just over 50 votes were fed into ithem.

Ba-alan said they have prepared contingency measures to address PCOS malfunction issues, including capability to perform manual counting.