9,225 WV cops to secure polls

By Jennifer P. Rendon

By current estimate, 9,225 policemen will be deployed to secure the May 9, 2022 national and local elections in Western Visayas.

The Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6) said Monday that the bulk of the deployment, or around   7,132, will be sent to different voting centers.

On the other hand, 774 personnel will be assigned to election monitoring action centers while 892 personnel will form part of mobile security teams.

387 personnel will remain in city and provincial police offices for monitoring purposes.

Lieutenant Colonel Arnel Solis, PRO-6 spokesperson, said they will also deploy 40 personnel to provincial and city electoral boards.

He explained that the deployment did not include mobile force units that will be placed on standby.

The send-off ceremony is tentatively scheduled on May 9.

After the send-off ceremony, augmentation forces will be sent to provincial and police offices.

Solis said majority of the augmentation forces will be sent to the Iloilo Police Provincial Office (IPPO).

Days before the elections, PRO-6 said it did not receive any report of election-related incidents (ERI).

As there was no ERI, Solis said they also did not get wind of vote buying incidents in the region.

“So far, maski complaint, we have not received any report,” he said.

But he admitted that they would strengthen their monitoring since most vote buying incidents happen a day or days before the elections.