Comelec, IBP, monitoring group unite for clean BARMM polls

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Commission on Elections, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and a regional peace-advocacy entity agreed on Friday, September 11, to cooperate in ensuring peaceful and clean parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro region on September 14.

Comelec Chairman George Erwin Garcia, the lawyer Allan Panolong, who is national president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, and the director of the Institute for Autonomy and Governance, Benedicto Bacani, signed in Cotabato City on Friday, September 11, a memorandum of agreement on collaboration in promoting credible and safe elections in BARMM.

Garcia, Panolong and Bacani, who is also a lawyer and lead convenor of the Independent Election Monitoring Center-BARMM, most known by its acronym IEMC-BARMM, affixed their signatures to the document during a symbolic rite at the Notre Dame University in Cotabato City, in the presence of reporters.

Garcia had told reporters then that he and his subordinate Comelec officials appreciate the support of various organizations and peacebuilding groups to their election security initiatives.

Bacani and Panolong separately told reporters, at the sidelines of the event, held in one of the function facilities in the campus of the Catholic university, that they shall help the Comelec consolidate election monitoring reports and document possible undue election-related incidents as a basis for judicial proceedings.

They both separately acknowledged the contributions of the media in educating voters on the intricacies and ramifications of Monday’s BARMM parliamentary polls compared to the regular synchronized local, provincial, congressional, senatorial and presidential elections.

“Our security preparations for these elections are in place,” Garcia told reporters after he, Panolong and Bacani signed their cooperation pact on Friday.

Garcia said certain areas in the Bangsamoro region rocked by election-related violence during past elections, are now guarded tightly by different units of the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police.

More than 20 units from the Army’s 1st, 4th and 10th Infantry Divisions, based in Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur, in Cagayan de Oro City and in Mawab, Davao de Oro, respectively, had been deployed for election duties in different areas in BARMM, including far-flung barangays in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces and in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area, all in Central Mindanao.

Up to 4,000 police personnel from different southern administrative regions had also been assigned to BARMM municipalities to help units of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region secure polling sites on Monday, under Comelec’s supervision.

Garcia’s subordinate-officials in Comelec's regional office in BARMM told reporters on Saturday that the commander of the 10th ID, Major Gen. Alvin Luzon, had dispatched additional troops from their 27th and 72nd Infantry Battalions to augment the personnel of the 6th and 11th  IDs who would secure polling sites on Monday. 

The 6th ID, under Brig. Gen. Ricky Bunayog has jurisdiction over Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces and the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area, all in Central Mindanao, where there are enclaves of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has a partisan bloc, the United Bangsamoro Justice Party, that has individual candidates for parliamentary districts and nominees for bloc representation in the 80-member regional parliament.

Luzon said the personnel of units they have deployed to BARMM had been instructed to do their best in maintaining peace in areas around the polling precincts that they are to secure on Monday, under Comelec’s guidance.

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