President Rodrigo Duterte has not given any order to help any candidate, particularly those running for president in the May 9 elections, the country’s interior chief said on Thursday.
“For your alluding that somebody higher up will tell the uniformed troops to give favor to this or to that or provide assistance to this if you are referring to the President or somebody in Malacañang, I will say to you frankly, there is no such order. The President has said over and over that he is not going to endorse any presidential candidate,” Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Año said in a joint presser with the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for the forthcoming polls in Camp Crame.
Año also said Duterte’s main order is to ensure that the people are able to safely cast their votes in the polls.
“We had a joint AFP-PNP command conference presided by the President. Isa lang palagi ang sinasabi niya, (He always says only one thing) I want to have a peaceful, clean, orderly, honest election. Gusto niya kung sino yung iboboto ng mga tao (He wants who the people will vote for) we must have a clean, honest, orderly election. We will not be partisan. We will ensure that the people are able to cast their vote and we will protect the sanctity of the ballot. So that’s the standing order and we are ready to prosecute anyone within the department or within the uniformed services under the DILG to go after any violator or anyone who will play politics. That’s our assurance to the public and we will do our job properly,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, PNP chief, Gen. Dionardo Carlos, said as an agency deputized to secure the polls, they will follow the President’s marching orders.
“We do not receive any illegal orders so a total of 225,000 police personnel will stand directly, professionally and perform as a deputized agency of the Comelec, that is our role,” he added.
The PNP chief said continuous meetings are all being done at the regional, provincial and city, municipal levels to ensure peaceful polls.
“We are here to work for the peaceful election and I am happy to say we are working on our mandate and function and at the same time yung ating mga pulis are really performing for a peaceful election. All we need to do now is to again go to the ground, what’s really happening and mabigyan ng guidance and we set it up in such a way that the NTF is monitoring, DO (Directorate for Operations) is keeping all the records, and the data and submitting it to the Comelec. At the same time, we go to the ground and make sure the field commanders are also going to the ground and supervising the police units,” he stressed.
Lt. Gen. Ferdinand Divina, PNP deputy chief for operations and the concurrent head of the PNP National Task Force for May 9 elections, said they have recommended 105 municipalities and 15 cities be placed under the red category for the May 9 elections.
“The specifics of this number are already available with the directorate for operations but we will always refer to the clearance of the Comelec for such release because we are a deputized agency of the Comelec,” Divina said.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez, who was also present during the press conference, said they continue to validate the areas of concern recommended by the PNP.
“We are undergoing validation and we hope that within the week we will be able to release the final list of areas under concern. What we do now is we respect the findings of the PNP and we believe that yes there is a basis for their findings, it’s just that we have to check and cross-check with our people on the ground regarding the situation. Also to decide what the appropriate response of the commission will be. As Commissioner George Garcia said, we tend to use a light hand on this matter because we find it very disruptive to the local community kung bigla tayong papasok diyan ang magdedeklara tayo ng (if we suddenly declare) hotspot or area of concern. so there is room for validation at this point,” Jimenez explained. (PNA)