00:00 Sanctity of the vote must always be preserved in whatever level of political exercise.
00:05 Thus, in this year's holding of the Barangay and Sangguni Ang Kabataan polls
00:09 to elect local officials for the most basic units of governance and society,
00:13 the PNP is preparing long and hard to ensure peace and order is conducted.
00:19 Patrick De Jesus has the full details.
00:21 In election areas of concern, the authorities have four categories
00:28 based on gravity of the problem.
00:30 The places without security issues are in the green category.
00:34 Locations with history of suspected election-related incidents in the past two elections,
00:39 intense partisan political rivalry, and the presence of armed groups fall under the yellow category.
00:45 The orange category is raised on places with serious threats from communist terrorist groups
00:51 and other threat groups such as the BIFF, Abu Sayyaf, and Maute Group.
00:56 The red category is the highest level, requiring additional personnel from the PNP and AFP.
01:02 These places may be placed under Comelec control.
01:06 Of the 40,000 barangays in the entire country,
01:09 more than 300 are under the red category according to the PNP and Comelec.
01:14 But the number may change before the 2023 Barangay and SK elections on Monday.
01:20 In areas of concern, particularly those under Comelec control,
01:24 we have allocated additional human and logistical resources to ensure seamless election process.
01:32 Security measures have been beefed up,
01:36 including daily risk and threat assessments to preserve peace and order.
01:42 Starting tonight, a full alert status will be raised,
01:45 and the PNP will deploy 187,600 police officers across the archipelago.
01:52 Until today, there have been 26 validated election-related incidents.
01:56 Despite this, the PNP assures the public that the situation is still under control in the entire country.
02:04 Overall, generally, the areas are peaceful except for these isolated incidents.
02:11 And we are monitoring together with the Comelec.
02:18 We have a PPC, a data sharing agreement.
02:20 We have a command center from the national, even at the regional level.
02:26 Patrick de Asous for the Nation.
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