By DARLENE CAY
THE Commission on Elections on Wednesday said it has packed and shipped 94.65 percent of the materials needed for the October 28 barangay polls.
Comelec Commissioner Al Parreño, who heads the Committee on Deployment, said the distribution of paraphernalia is being implemented according to the plan.
“Wala naman kaming nakikitang problema sa paglilipat. Maayos ‘yung delivery sa ngayon…Kumpleto na ang ating delivery by this week. Earliest by October 24 (We do not see any problem in the deployment [of election materials]. The delivery is running smoothly. It will be done by this week, earliest is by October 24),” he said.
Only Regions III, IV and National Capital Region (NCR) have not received the election materials. NCR is always the last to receive the election materials because Comelec prioritizes deployment to the provinces.
The Comelec said Monday’s political exercise is expected to see a rise in the number of voters compared to the volume in the last midterm elections, based on the increase in the number of voters now registered in 42,028 barangays in 80 provinces across the country.
Registered voters have risen to 54 million from 52 million in May, while the number of precincts more than doubled to 170,000 from 76,000 and the number of teachers or members of Board of Election Tellers increased from 229,000 to 510,000.
A total of 809,136 candidates filed their Certificate of Candidacies for Monday’s polls.
With the barangay elections seen to be “more intense” than the midterm elections because of fierce political rivalries, Comelec is working with the police and military in stepping up efforts to ensure a peaceful elections.
“We’re talking of nationwide security. Continuous lang ang monitoring ng security. Continuous rin ang strict enforcement ng gun ban,” Comelec chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said today.
The election gun ban began last September 28, the start of the election period for the barangay polls, and police have arrested at least 438 persons for violating the prohibition, most of them civilians. The list also includes five members of the Philippine National Police, four of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, 16 security guards, and three government officials.
The police also confiscated 352 firearms, 140 bladed weapons, 64 grenades, 86 other explosives,16 replica guns, and 2,685 rounds of ammunition.
Commissioner Christian Robert Lim said the PNP had requested for P347 million for the coming polls, but “we told them we can give only P60 million.” The Armed Forces of the Philippines got P40 million.
The police on Monday identified 6,195 villages as election hotspots or “areas of concern” based on cases of election violence and political rivalry, the existence of private armed groups and the proliferation of firearms, among others.
The hotspots make up 14.74 percent of the total 42,038 barangays spread in the country, the PNP’s public information chief Senior Superintendent Reuben Theodore Sindac said.
Officials said 39 of the total 1,704 villages in the National Capital Region as areas of concern.
They have also tallied 36 victims of election-related violence since September 28 up to October 21. At least 15 were killed: five barangay kagawad, two barangay captains, a candidate and seven civilians, according to figures from the PNP Public Information Office.
The wounded included two kagawads, four barangay captains, two councilors, a candidate, and eight civilians, the information office said. – With reports from Marcella Licuanan
(Darlene Cay is a University of the Philippines journalism student writing for VERA Files.)