The Philippine National Police (PNP) has identified 488 towns and 58 cities as potential election hotspots for next year’s national and local elections.
Brig. Gen. Michael John Dubria, head of the PNP Directorate for Intelligence, said in a news briefing Monday the data is still up for verification and subject to validation with their military counterparts.
The election hotspot list has four categories — Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red but Dubria did not disclose specific towns and cities and their respective categories.
He said only 3 percent out of the country’s 1,438 towns and about 5 percent of 146 cities are under the red category.
Among those under the red category include areas from the Cagayan Valley (Region 2), Central Luzon (Region 3), Bicol Region (Region 5), Western Visayas (Region 6), and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
“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.
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; while Red means areas of grave concern, which exhibit combined factors under the Yellow category with serious armed threats that may cause the Commission on Elections to declare control over an area.
The PNP was earlier tasked by the Department of the Interior and Local Government to identify election hotspots to ensure an orderly and peaceful poll.
Meantime, newly appointed Philippine Army chief Maj. Gen. Romeo Brawner said defeating the insurgency would allow them to focus more on helping the Comelec ensure that the May 2022 polls are “orderly, honest, and credible.”
He ordered intelligence units to step up their operations, as he vowed to push needed resources to all Army units.
Meanwhile, the PNP said it will assist the Comelec in conducting mock polls on Dec. 29, which will enable it to observe the actual process flow for the May 2022 elections.
In a statement Sunday, PNP chief Gen. Dionardo Carlos said the activity would help them determine and evaluate the strategic plan for the deployment of personnel.
Under the Omnibus Election Code, the PNP personnel are not allowed to get inside the different voting precincts but are assigned to maintain peace and order in the vicinity.
The PNP will also be tasked to secure the transportation of ballots and other election paraphernalia.
The mock polls, which will be held in several places in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, would be an end-to-end demonstration of the whole process.
Also on Monday, the Comelec said it will work with social media platforms Facebook and Twitter for the verification of 2022 election candidates’ accounts.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez confirmed this after he announced over the weekend that the poll body will be teaming up with YouTube to verify candidates’ official channels for the 2022 national and local elections.
“Yes, we are working with Facebook and Twitter and with of course, Google, which is the parent company [of] YouTube,” he said in an ANC interview.
Jimenez said Comelec does not see this rule as “inequitable,” explaining that this is part of the poll body’s steps to fight disinformation and misinformation.
On Dec. 1, Google announced that it would temporarily stop accepting election-related advertisements, saying this would help prevent online trolls from misleading the public.
The tech giant said it will instead focus on election-related activities that “aim to help people access useful and accurate information via product features and media literacy programs, encourage participation in the voting process, and help protect the integrity of the elections.”
The Comelec, meanwhile, said a petition seeking to postpone the 2022 national and local elections was unconstitutional and would not prosper.
Jimenez issued the statement after the Coalition for Life and Democracy filed a petition to suspend the May 2022 polls until 2025 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The petition itself just at the surface seems unlikely to prosper,” Jimenez said in a television interview over ANC news.
The poll official explained that it is not stipulated in the Constitution that stated elected officials can hold on to their posts in case a national election is postponed.
“I think they’re going by the fact that the Comelec does have the authority to suspend the conduct of elections. But the petition itself, just on the surface of it, seems unlikely to prosper,” Jimenez said.
“Basically saying that we’re going to go against the Constitution and just not hold elections this year. Right? That would be unconstitutional,” he added.
He said the Comelec has authority to suspend the elections but only for short periods and “only when the conditions for free and fair elections do not exist.”
“I think those particular criteria do not exist right now. So, I don’t see any justification for granting this sort of petition. Of course, that’s entirely on the commission en banc if it ever gets to them,” he added.