ILOILO City – Policemen with relatives – up to the fourth degree of consanguinity – running for barangay or Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) posts have been reassigned to other areas.
Uniformed and non-uniformed personnel of the Philippine National Police should remain nonpartisan in this election, according to the Police Regional Office 6 (PRO-6).
Data from the PRO-6 showed 432 police officers across the region – both police commissioned officers and non-commissioned officers – were temporarily moved to other assignments.
“After the election, they will return to their old assignments,” said Chief Superintendent Cesar Hawthorne Binag, regional police director.
The province of Iloilo has the most number of reassigned police officers (125).
Capiz has 106; Negros Occidental, 81; Antique, 61; Guimaras, 22; Aklan, 21; Iloilo City, 13; and Bacolod City, 3.
“(Our job is to) guard the integrity of this election. As police officers we should be neutral and never intervene,” said Binag.
Yesterday, the PRO-6 held a sendoff ceremony for 8,511 policemen tasked to ensure a clean, peaceful and orderly election on May 14.
Binag said partisan PNP personnel face administrative sanctions.
“Observe utmost discipline and professionalism at all times, even when using social networking sites,” said Binag.
The campaign period has so far been peaceful, he observed.
The campaign period is from May 4 to 12.
“We hope this peace would be sustained up to election day,” said Binag.
But he lamented the continued violation of the election gun ban despite the massive information campaign of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) about it.
“The gun ban will end on May 21 yet. All permits to carry firearms outside of residences have been suspended,” said Binag.
Those who want to be exempted from the ban must apply at the Comelec, he stressed./PN
