Cops to serve as election inspectors in villages with high threat level

MANILA, Philippines—Policemen would be deployed as election officers in villages where teachers have refused to serve as members of board of election inspectors due to security reasons, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said on Tuesday.

Senior Supt. Reuben Theodore Sindac, PNP spokesman, said police units nationwide were already finalizing its security preparations for the Oct. 28 barangay (village) elections.

“We are prepping up our security preparations. In fact, we have a scheduled meeting on Thursday with the Comelec (Commission on Elections), the military and other stakeholders,” Sindac said in a news briefing at Camp Crame on Tuesday.

“We will wait for the Comelec directive on possibility of tasking policemen as board of election inspectors. We will follow the Comelec resolution or whatever directive they will give us,” he said.

He said more than 6,000 of some 42,000 villages across the country might be declared as election hot spots due to intense political rivalry among candidates.

Territorial police units were already assessing the security situation in these areas, Sindac said.

“These areas are still being validated if they should be included on the list of areas of concern,” he said.

He said 150 other villages may also be placed as “areas of immediate concern” in the run-up to the barangay elections, which have been more violent than national polls.

Meanwhile, Sindac said 180 individuals, most of them civilians, had been arrested for violating the gun ban, which the Comelec started to implement on Sept. 28.

He said the police had confiscated 147 firearms, 49 bladed weapons, 23 explosives, 10 grenades, 10 firearm replicas and 1,237 bullets.