At least 42,000 military personnel were deployed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) nationwide to perform election duties, a military spokesperson disclosed Sunday, May 1.

Col. Ramon Zagala, AFP spokesperson, said that 40,000 troops were fielded by respective unified commands while 2,000 personnel from the headquarter units were sent to augment areas that need additional manpower.

“Right now, we allocated 40,000 troops just for election duties and we can deploy more,” Zagala said in a radio interview over dzBB.

“More or less 2,000 headquarter units were also sent to augment areas that need more troops,” he added.

The AFP is now focused on two missions ahead of the elections: first is securing the elections and second is continuous combat operations to thwart any security issues on the day of the polls.

“All threat groups that the AFP faces are being monitored right now. First on the list is the NPA , and then we have the local threat groups like the Abu Sayyaf Group, Maute Group, etc. We are monitoring the areas where these groups are based,” Zagala said.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) have designated a color coding to determine the severity of security concern in the different parts of the country.

Areas under green category are considered as election areas of no security concern; yellow category are those with concern; orange are those with immediate concern; and red are those with grave concern.

So far, Zagala said a total og 14 cities and 105 municipalities are listed under the red category.

“The directive now of the AFP Chief of Staff to the unified commands in these areas is to locate these 15 cities and 105 towns, guard them and allocate an adequate number of forces,.” Zagala said.