The conduct of the plebiscite in Palawan, wherein the ‘No’ votes prevailed over an attempt to divide the province into three, is peaceful and orderly, a top police official said on Wednesday, March 17.
Lt. Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar, officer-in-charge of the Philippine National Police (PNP), said they have not monitored any untoward incident during the voting on March 13 up to the last canvassing of votes.
The only hassles they encountered, according to Eleazar, was the delivery of election materials to polling centers due to transportation and weather issues and minor problems in the relay of information due to poor signal reception and bad weather condition.
He added that the implementation of the health safety protocol was also a problem but was eventually enforced.
Almost 1,000 policemen were deployed in Palawan to provide security to registered voters and election officials in 487 polling centers in 367 Barangay of the 23 municipalities across mainland Palawan and the island municipalities. The PNP is augmented by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard personnel.
“Local communist terrorist groups and its front organizations and other domestic threat groups were effectively rendered immobile by proactive security measures, and were actively prevented from engaging in any form of prohibited actions that threatened the otherwise peaceful and orderly plebiscite”, said Eleazar.