BY GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The Philippine National Police yesterday said that some areas in Western Visayas are considered as potential election hotspots for the May 2022 elections.
While he did not identify the specific towns and cities in Region 6, Brig. Gen. Michael John Dubria, head of the PNP Directorate for Intelligence, said that the data is still subject for validation with their counterparts in the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
A total of 546 towns and cities all over the country have been initially identified by the PNP as potential hotspots for next year’s national and local elections.
During a press conference at Camp Crame with PNP chief Gen. Dionardo Carlos, Dubria said that election hotspot list has four categories — Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red.
Western Visayas was among those mentioned by Dubria as under the Red category.
The Red means areas of grave concern, which exhibit combined factors under the Yellow category with serious armed threats that it may warrant the motu propio (on its own) declaration of Comelec control.
Dubria said that only 3 percent out of the country’s 1,438 towns and about 5 percent of 146 cities are under the red category.
“So those are the figures translated into just 39 towns and seven cities. Those are the critical areas that we are focusing on,” he added
PNP chief Dionardo Carlos said that they will give priority in the deployment of police personnel in Red areas so that it will not be an area of concern during the next year elections.
Green refers to areas that do not have security concerns and are generally peaceful and orderly, while Yellow are areas of concern, which means that these have a history of election-related incidents in the last elections, possible employment of partisan armed groups, occurrence of politically motivated election-related incidents and had been previously declared under Comelec control.
Category Orange, meanwhile, means areas of immediate concern where there is serious armed threat.
Brig. Gen. Inocencio Pasaporte, 303rd Infantry Brigade commander, earlier said that they will have to validate potential election hotspots in Negros Occidental, presented earlier by the PNP.* with report from PNA
