Cops dismantle 6 PAGs in Cordillera operations

 BAGUIO CITY – Chief Supt. Benjamin B. Magalong, regional director of the Police Regional Office in the Cordillera, disclosed law enforcers were able to dismantle six private armed groups (PAGs) in the region as part of their campaign to ensure peaceful  elections in the coming May  elections.

Out of the dismantled PAGs, Senior Superintendent Roberto Quinto Soriano, PRO-COR deputy regional director for administration and Abra provincial police officer-in-charge, cited 5 PAGs with 87 members were from Abra 1 PAG with 12 members is from Kalinga.

“We want to involve all stakeholders in Abra and Kalinga to be actively involved in the campaign to guarantee the dismantling of the three remaining PAGs with 27 members in Abra and the lone remaining PAG with 4 members in Kalinga before the start of the campaign period for the mid-term elections,” Magalong told the Manila Standard, adding that the positive results of their peacekeeping foundations which they had put in place over the past several years is “very challenging” on their part, especially with the outcome of the May 2013 elections.

Abra was listed as one of the 15 provinces considered “high-risk” areas for election violence earlier released by the government. Kalinga has also election-related incidents in the past elections that lined the province up as a potential election hot spot.

Magalong said so far there is no politically related violence yet are recorded in the two provinces just the usual alcohol-related quarrels, personal grudge, family feuds and love triangles.

He reported that they have intensified their campaign against PAGS. Part of the PRO-Cor strategies are to arrest known PAG members who have outstanding warrant of arrest and to go after criminals charged in court so that they will be arrested and be prevented from being used by politicians as their private armies in the coming elections.

They have also strengthened the campaign for the recovery of loose firearms which is also one of the major factors on the existence of violence and election-related incidents that have already claimed hundreds of innocent lives of politicians and their supporters over the past two decades.

For loose firearms, Magalong reported that 395 various caliber of firearms in the region including 174 in Abra from January to November 2012 were confiscated during numerous police operations.

Magalong also reported that they have also already shifted from stationary to moving checkpoints, which is more effective especially with the implementation of the Commission on Election’s gun ban policy this January 13.

‘We have around 46 moving check points displaced all over the region including 10 here in Baguio City’, Magalong said, adding that 21 mobile checkpoints are also being done in Abra daily to enhance their campaign against the proliferation of private armies province wide.

According to Soriano, police operating units are also conducting house to house visitations to those individuals with expired firearm licenses so that they will be updated on whether or not they are interested to renew their firearm licenses or their firearms will be declared as loose which could be subjected to appropriate search warrants.