Police plan operations for holidays, 2019 polls
24/7 HIGHER VISIBILITY ORDERED
POLICE Regional Director, Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula has ordered the police in the four provinces to prepare and implement plans that will require full alert 24/7 on the region’s police personnel for the coming holidays leading to the campaign period and elections in May 2019.
Sapitula made the call during a regional conference attended by all four police provincial directors and chiefs of police of cities and towns in Region 1 on Tuesday to ensure the safety of the people celebrating Christmas and New Year holidays, fiesta celebrations, and expected highly-contested mid-term elections in 2019.
In an interview with Bombo Radyo Dagupan, he said he ordered increased police visibility in all the region’s main thoroughfares and malls, ready to respond to any emergency.
The police visibility, he said, will be maintained up to next year’s elections as he expressed the possibility there may be some places in the region where political rivalries among candidates could be intense.
In the regional conference, each provincial director and chiefs of police identified their respective key plans to keep their communities peaceful and safe.
Except for some violent incidents that happened in Balaoan and Sudipen, La Union as well as in Bayambang, Pangasinan, Sapitula maintained that Region 1 remains generally peaceful and expressed confidence that the level of violence would not escalate.
The slaying of former Councilor Levin Uy, a candidate for councilor in Bayambang town, is now being looked into by a Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) formed by the PNP Provincial Office in Pangasinan.
On the killings of some officials and other people in Balaoan and in Sudipen, he said the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) is also focused in its investigations.
“We are not seeing any threat in the region but nonetheless, we are maintaining our vigilance so that no harm will come to our people,” Sapitula told the radio station.
He, however, added that there is still a possibility that some places may be declared as “hot spots” in the coming election but these places are still undergoing continuing assessment. He did not name the potential hot spots in Pangasinan.
He said the decision to tag towns or cities as election hotspots are usually based on their historical accounts of violence, the profiles of political personalities and presence of private armed groups. (Leonardo Micua)
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