MANILA — The Philippine National Police (PNP) considers almost 3,000 barangays as areas with security concerns for the 2023 Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections.
PNP said 361 of these communities are under the red category – the highest alert level among all places.
On the other hand, 1,252 barangays are under the orange category.
Places in this category have serious threats from local armed groups or communist terrorist groups.
As many as 1,210 areas are listed in the yellow category.
The yellow category indicates the sites have records of election-related incidents (ERI).
The Philippines has a total of 42,001 barangays.
Meanwhile, the PNP recorded 135 violent occurrences from August 28 to October 26.
Twenty-six of these events are related to the elections.
The figure showed a slight increase from the 23 ERIs recorded on October 25.
Details about the three new incidents were not yet disclosed, but the first 23 ERIs came from the following regions:
* two in Ilocos Region
* one in Calabarzon (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon)
* two in Bicol
* two in Central Visayas
* three in Eastern Visayas
* one in Zamboanga Peninsula
* three in Northern Mindanao
* four in Cordillera Administrative Region
* five in Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
Aside from these data, PNP said 24 more incidents are suspected to be poll-related. (Angeline Marcelino © Philippine Daily Inquirer)
