Poll Violence Down 55%: PNP

The number of election-related violent incidents (ERVI) during the 2019 mid-term elections dropped by 55 percent as compared to figures from 2016, the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Friday.

PNP spokesman Col. Bernard Banac said 60 ERVIs were recorded from January 19 to June 6 this year, lower than the 133 ERVis recorded in the last elections.

For the 2019 mid-term polls, 51 election-related violence were recorded from January 13 to May 12 while eight cases were reported during Election Day. Only one was reported so far after the elections.

Of the 113 victims reported for this year’s polls, 23 were killed, 46 were injured while 44 were unharmed while 50 people were reported killed during the 2016 presidential elections.

The election period, however, will end next week.

Banac added there had been 5,176 firearms of different types confiscated and some 49,438 deadly weapons seized in operations that also resulted in the arrests of 6,203 persons. He described operations as police response, checkpoint, gun check and the serving of search warrants from January 13 to June 5.

The PNP leadership earlier attributed the reduction in the number of incidence of election violence to early preparations that started as early as July last year, a time when the number of elected officials killed was rising.

“This is a big decline. We cannot entirely say we are doing good but of course, with these incidents, we aim to fully implement our police interventions so that the number of ERVIs won’t increase,” said PNP Chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde earlier.

He said the sharp decrease in ERVIs can be attributed to the strict security measures implemented by both the PNP and the Armed Forces in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies, and the cooperation of candidates to prevent violence.

Albayalde said other factors, which may have contributed to the low ERVIs, were the PNP’s application of search warrants on known criminal lairs, guns-for-hire, and members of private armed groups and application of warrants of arrest on wanted persons. (PNA)