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Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) regional
police Chief Superintendent Joel Goltiao said the contingent would
compose of 7,253 police and 5,337 soldiers, to be tapped to secure
the area as well as automated counting machines five days before the
scheduled elections.
The forthcoming ARMM elections is
the first automated poll in the history of the country’s electoral
process and serves as a trial run for the 2010 presidential
elections.
Some 1.7-million registered
voters in the six ARMM provinces will elect the Regional Governor,
Vice Governor and three Assemblymen for each of the Regional
Legislative Districts.
Goltiao’s statement came as
police, military and officials of the Commission on Elections (Comelec)
held a joint command conference in Camp Crame Tuesday, attended by
Comelec officials, representatives from the Armed Forces of the
Philippines’(AFP) Task Force Halalan and Philippine National
Police (PNP) officials from the ARMM.
Goltiao expressed high hopes that
the ARMM polls would be peaceful. “We expect a peaceful ARMM
election . . . We want to give a security preparation to avoid
blunders as much as possible.”
The Comelec will hold mock
elections in Maguindanao province on July 22.
Comelec Executive Director Jose
Tolentino, for his part, said the PNP has requested a budget of P20
million from the Comelec and a partial amount of P7.2 million was
already released.
This developed as the police and
the military formed task forces in charge of security preparations
for the ARMM elections. Deputy Director General Emmanuel Carta, the
deputy national police chief for operations, and Armed Forces Vice
Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Cardozo Luna, heads these
respective task forces.
“We can work with our own
resources and we will accomplish the mission with complete or
partial budget,” Carta said.
Brigadier General Romeo Lustetica,
AFP Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations said the AFP is taking
counter-measures against armed hostilities by the Moro Islamic
Liberation Front.
--Maricel V. Cruz
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