Central Visayas police focusing barangay threat assessment for BSKE in NegOr

THE Police Regional Office Central Visayas (PRO 7) is conducting threat assessment in barangays having election-related incidents in the previous elections, five months before the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Election (BSKE) October this year.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Gerard Ace Pelare, spokesperson of PRO-7, that based on the records of the Philippine National Police, 129 places in the Central Visayas were declared areas of concern during the 2018 barangay election.

For this coming BSKE, the PRO 7 will be focusing its threat assessment in Negros Oriental, where the late Governor Roel Degamo was shot dead along with eight other civilians inside his residential compound in Pamplona town on March 4, 2023.

However, they do not consider the situation in the province as under the critical level because they are still evaluating whether the incident was related to politics or not.

Pelare said someone suggested that the BSKE in Negros Oriental be postponed due to the ongoing tension there, but the PRO-7 has not yet tackled the idea because they setting their focus on the scheduled BSKE.

Pelare explained that the police are ready for safe, orderly and fair barangay elections this year. (AYB, TPT)