Close to 4,000 cops to secure barangay elections in EV

By RPCRD, Police Regional Office 8
October 24, 2013

CAMP KANGLEON, Palo, Leyte – The Police Regional Office 8 (PRO8) has stepped-up its security preparations and operations for the October 28 barangay elections with the deployment of close to 4,000 policemen in the field to render election duties.

PRO8 director PCSupt. Elmer R. Soria said that his office is maximizing the effective strength of police personnel for elections duty in line with the intensified security coverage before, during, and after election day.

“We assure the electorate that we have enough troops to secure the electoral proceedings and ensure that the elections will not be hindered by any security concern,” Soria said.

He added that 3,914 policemen will be deployed to man the Police Assistance Desks (PADs) in clustered voting centers (CVCs) to perform election duties on election day while the rest of the 6,150-strong PRO8 police force will be performing other election-related duties aside from their routine police functions.

On Thursday, 981 policemen were sent to different police provincial and city offices’ to augment the number of police personnel in the field who will render election duties.

A total of 2,312 CVCs will be secured by the police while 990 CVCs will be secured by the military. The region has 3,780 voting centers and 4,390 villages.

The maximum deployment plan includes the activation Reactionary Standby Support Force (RSSF) at the regional, provincial and city police offices that can be deployed anytime if the need arises.

Regular coordination with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and its counterparts in the Philippine Army are also being done through the Joint Security Control Center (JSCC) while the Election Monitoring and Action Centers (EMACS) closely supervise troop movements and all election-related concerns, the police official added.

A total of 2,664,952 registered voters will troop to 17,729 established precincts and 9,140 clustered/grouped precincts on Monday’s barangay elections in the region.