A total of 488 municipalities and 58 cities are in list of the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) areas of concern for the local and national elections in May next year.
But Police Brig. Gen. Michael Dubria, head of the PNP’s Directorate for Intelligence, said the list are still to be validated in coordination with local forces and other intelligence units of the national government.
“Our total election hotspots per our data is about 488 towns and 58 cities but then that is subject for validation,” said Dubria in a press briefing.
The PNP has been categorizing the election situation in every area into four classifications—Green, Yellow, Orange and Red. He did not disclose the breakdown of towns and cities for each of them but said the total is 488 towns and 58 cities.
He said most of the areas are in the Bangsamoro Administrative Region but also disclosed that there are also some areas in under in Regions 2, 3, 5, 6.
Dubria later said, however, that there are 39 municipalities and seven cities who are under the Red category.
“These are the areas which are closely monitoring,” said Dubria.
“The good thing about this is that under the red category we only have three percent out of the total 1,438 number of towns in the country and We also have five percent for the 146 cities in the country,” he added.
The official said they will hold a coordination meeting with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for the validation.