Maguindanao gears up for Barangay, SK polls

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines — With martial law in place, the Maguindanao provincial peace and order council is certain of peaceful synchronized barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections in the province on May 14.

Members of the PPOC, however, want the Maguindanao Electric Cooperative to ensure supply of electricity to campuses in remote villages to prevent electoral fraud during nighttime tabulation of poll results.

The inter-agency PPOC convened in Buluan, Maguindanao’s provincial capital, on Tuesday to finalize preparations complementing the security efforts of the Commission on Elections.

Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, PPOC’s presiding chairperson, told reporters Tuesday that he had called on candidates who are either involved in trafficking of narcotics, or are hooked to illegal drugs not to proceed with their candidacy.

“Their careers will never prosper and life would be so hard for them because we have a president who is uncompromising, so tough in dealing with the country’s drug problem and we in the provincial government support his anti-drug campaign. Meaning? We will do our best to help prosecute them,” Mangudadatu said.

Members of the PPOC have asked the Regional Police Office-Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and the Army’s 6th Infantry Division to intensify their surveillance of towns in the second district of the province, where there are heavily armed groups, led by wanted suspects in the infamous Nov. 23, 2009 “Maguindanao massacre,” that can meddle with the conduct of elections to help favored candidates of local officials providing them sanctuary.

Mangudadatu said the martial law will help restrain candidates and their supporters from committing any violation of Comelec rules that can give authorities reason to detain them without arrest warrants.

“I’m not a lawyer but I think the Comelec, the police and the military have extensive powers that can be exhausted to ensure peaceful elections in the province on May 14, as a positive consequence the martial law,” Mangudadatu said.

The Mindanao-wide martial law gave the police and military extensive authority needed in neutralizing armed groups and criminal gangs in southern provinces.

President Rodrigo Duterte placed Mindanao under martial law, to last until December this year, right after the Islamic State-inspired Maute and Abu Sayyaf terror groups laid siege to Marawi City on May 23, 2017, sparking hostilities that lasted for five months.

The conflict resulted in the deaths of hundreds, among them personnel of the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police, and left dozens of centuries-old Maranaw enclaves there in ruins.

Officials of the provincial government’s Maguindanao Task Force Reconciliation and Unification said Tuesday the resolution of more than a hundred vendetta clan feuds in the province by Mangudadatu’s office in the past seven years helped deescalate the deep-seated rivalries of big families for control of their barangays in certain towns.

“Instead of pitting candidates against each other, the reconciled clans agreed to share power and have common candidates for chairman and councilors in their barangays,” said the ethnic Maguindanaon Col. Markton Abo, civil-military operations officer of 6th ID and representative of the division to the task force.

In a statement Wednesday, Chief Superintendent Graciano Mijares of the Police Regional Office-ARMM said they are ready to provide the Comelec security support on May 14.

There are three towns big in Maguindanao --- Sultan Kudarat, Datu Odin Sinsuat and Shariff Aguak --- were candidates for barangay chairmen and councilors are unopposed.

“Minus these three towns, we can focus better on the other 33 towns in the province,” Mijares said.

Maguindanao has 36 towns divided into two congressional districts.

The PRO-ARMM and the 6th ID are to secure tightly all towns where there is presence of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

The BIFF, which uses the flag of the Islamic State as its revolutionary banner, is not covered by the interim ceasefire accord between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The security sector and the MILF have agreed to cooperate in ensuring peaceful and orderly barangay and SK elections in far-flung areas on May 14.

Major Gen. Arnel Dela Vega of 6th ID said the Coordinating Committees on the Cessation of Hostilities of the government and the MILF have forged an agreement binding both sides to help each other maintain law and order in potential conflict flashpoint areas during the actual polling day.

The government and the MILF are bound by a 1997 interim security pact, the Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities, to mutually cooperate in addressing security issues in areas where there are recognized guerilla enclaves.

“Of course the mutual election security cooperation shall be pursued under the full guidance of the Commission on Elections,” Dela Vega said.

The security scheme was signed on May 4 by representatives of the MILF and the government during a simple rite at the headquarters in Cotabato City of the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team.

The peacekeeping contingent, comprised of military and police personnel from Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia and civilian conflict resolution experts from Norway, Japan and the European Union, has been helping enforce since 2004 the government-MILF ceasefire accord.