2 Mt. Province towns declared poll 'hotspots'

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -  Two remote villages in Paracelis town were the first to be declared election “hotspots”, the Commission on Elections said.

Barangays Buringal and Bunot, which are probably nearer to Santiago City in Isabela,  were identified by Mt. Province election supervisor Ricardo Lampac as “areas of concern” for the coming polls.

The towns'  history of election-related violence prompted the Comelec to declare these areas as hotspots. Since the official start of the election period on January 13, the police have yet to record any case of violence in the areas.

An area is considered “hotspot” or an area of "concern” if it has a history of election violence or rebels and other armed groups are present that may disturb the holding of a peaceful election.

In 2007,  unidentified armed men snatched ballot boxes and election returns in barangay Buringal, delaying the proclamation of some of the local winning candidates.

In the country's first automated local and national polls, held in 2010, two armed men burned one precinct count optical scan machine (PCOS) including election paraphernalia in sitio Apalis, Bunot,  prompting Comelec to declare a poll failure and called for special elections seven months later.

Though still very peaceful, Lampac is worried  about the perennial lack of policemen in Mt. Province to be assigned in the 227 clustered polling areas.

Pre-election “disarmament” procedures have been introduced in Abra for the past months including voluntary surrender of license firearms by politicians and the traditional carrot-and-stick approach to convince owners of unregistered guns to surrender their firearm. - Artemio A. Dumlao