The Police Regional Office in Western Visayas (PRO-6) will apply the experiences and lessons learned in past elections to secure the 2025 midterm elections even as intelligence monitoring is ongoing, especially in areas identified by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) as areas of concern.
PRO-6 spokesperson Lt. Colonel Arnel Solis said the past elections in Western Visayas were generally peaceful.
“We will see the latest situation considering that if we base on the previous elections — the 2023 barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections [BSKE], 2022 and 2019 national elections — so far were generally peaceful. Still the same, we will not keep our guard down. We will ensure this 2025 midterm elections will be peaceful and successful,” he said in an interview yesterday.
The Comelec on Thursday, January 9, disclosed that seven areas in Western Visayas are under the yellow category (areas with a history of election-related incidents), nine in orange (areas with serious armed threats), and one in red (areas with serious armed threats and history of election-related incidents).
“On the part of the PNP [Philippine National Police], as per their latest monitoring, the areas identified are peaceful, although there were parameters why they fall into certain categories as per the Commission on Elections,” Solis added.
Meanwhile, Iloilo provincial election supervisor lawyer Rainier Layson said they were surprised that their central office released the list of areas of concern early, even before the start of the election period.
“But we respect the fact that this is an official list. This is not really an adverse development but, actually, this is a great opportunity for the Comelec, the PNP, the AFP [Armed Forces of the Philippines], and the Coast Guard to better prepare and better secure the conduct of the elections because we can closely monitor the areas that were included in the areas of concern,” he said in an interview at the sidelines of the second Provincial Joint Security Control Center.
Among the areas on the list, the municipality of Calinog in Iloilo was the only local government unit in Western Visayas placed under the red category.
Layson said they will not stop at monitoring and will work proactively to de-escalate the classification.
Calinog’s election-related incident happened during the 2023 BSKE in Barangay Cahigon involving an encounter between the communist terrorist group and government troops last year.
“What we’re looking here is, of course, we want to eliminate one factor so that we can effectively lower Calinog into the next lowest category, which is orange,” he added. (PNA)