Voters are warned of a modus operandi hatched by some political camps to prevent them from exercising their right of suffrage on Monday.
According to an information reaching Provincial Administrator Alfonso Damalerio II, leaders of a political coalition will go house to house and offer cash so that members of the households will allow indelible ink to be placed on their fingers two to three days prior to election day, so that they would no longer be allowed to vote when they go to their polling precincts.
On this, Damalerio calls on the voters, especially those in the hinterlands, to report such incidents to authorities.
Police Superintendent Ricky Delelis, public information officer of the Bohol Police Provincial Office (BPPO), for his part, called on the voters not to sell their votes as there had been reports that some candidates had already gone around the towns to give as much as P2,000 to voters.
Delelis reminds the voters that they will have to bear three years of bad governance if they elect the wrong local candidates and six years for national candidates.
The voters have to carefully study the background of the candidates, their platforms, and consistency in their statements as guide in choosing the right candidates.
Delelis also calls on the candidates to adhere to clean means and avoid resorting to violence, especially in Election Watchlist Areas (EWAs).
Police Regional Office-7 director, Chief Superintendent Patrocinio Commendador Jr. is expected to visit Bohol today to meet Police Provincial Director Dennis Agustin and the municipal chiefs of police at Camp Dagohoy.
Commendador will check the preparation undertaken here to ensure a violence-free and orderly elections on May 9.
COMELEC FINALLY READY
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will be on top of the situation, and will make sure things are in place days prior to the elections.
Provincial Election Supervisor Jerome Brillantes mibutyag also said the security aspect during and after election day gas already been given attention also.
Brillantes led the final command conference held yesterday at the Bohol Cultural Center. It was attended by chiefs of police in municipalities, members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), representatives of the Department of Education, Boheco 1 and Boheco 1 officials, officials of Bohol Light Company, Incorporated (BLCI), Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), Provincial Treasurer Eustaquio Soccorin, Venturelink and Smartmatic.
The Provincial Joint Security Control Center (PJSCC) will watch over the security of facilities that are significant in ensuring success of the election—including the towers and transmission facilities of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, and in transporting the Vote Counting Machines (VCMs) and other election paraphernalia.
The 1,546 VCMs and their standby batteries have already arrived yesterday. The police are now closely guarding them at a warehouse where they are being stored.
The VCMs will be transported to the towns tomorrow and Friday. The final testing and sealing will be conducted simultaneously nationwide on Friday at the clustered precincts.
The official ballots are already at the municipal treasurer’s office of the towns, Brillantes added.
Police Superintendent Lorenzo Batuan, chief of the Operations Branch of the BPPO, said 500 more police personnel from the Regional Public Safety Batallion-7 will be deployed here as augmentation force.
The police personnel and army personnel will be deployed to the polling places and areas declared under EWAs starting this Friday for the preventive measures.
More troops will be deployed to EWAs such as Antequera, Tubigon, Clarin, Inabanga, Danao, Buenavista, Ubay, and Bilar.
Teams will also be deployed by Boheco 1 to the 27 towns within their coverage area, Boheco 2 for the 20 towns it serves, and BLCI for the Tagbilaran City area to ensure stable power supply.
Power connections to the polling places were already inspected and preventive maintenance routine on the substations had already been completed.
The DepEd officlas had also finished inspecting the classrooms utilized as polling precincnts.
Meanwhile, the 47th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army has been deployed and is ready to help maintain peace and order during the May 9 elections and the days leading to it, augmenting the already beefed up forces of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
According to Lt. Col. Jose Dodjie Belloga Jr., commander of the 47th Infantry Battalion stationed in Bohol, the troop is already 100 percent organized and briefed to take necessary actions and secure areas across the province during the elections.
The infantry commander assured the public of the battalion’s speedy mobilization through an interview with DYRD Balita.
Belloga said that troops of the battalion were being deployed since Thursday, April 28, 2016 and will be stationed in 45 towns to aid the PNP in maintaining peace and order during the elections.
The unit will also provide security in the transport of vote counting machines (VCM) and manning checkpoints set up across the province.
Around ten soldiers will be dispatched to secure each municipality excluding Tagbilaran City, as Belloga noted the large contingent of police personnel in the capital.
Since their deployment troops are already working 24 hours a day in securing their designated areas and will continue until the elections come to a close.
Army presence will be heightened in the eight towns under the Commission on Elections (Comelec) election watchlist areas.
On April 22, the Provincial Peace and Order Council (PPOC) passed a resolution requesting the Police Regional Office 7 for more uniformed personnel to augment the current police force in the province.
There are more than 1,500 police personnel in the entire province with each police station having at least 21 officers.
Two policemen will be assigned to secure 1546 precincts in the province while the others will be tasked to overlook the delivery of election paraphernalia.(with reports from Allen Doydora and Rey Tutas)