Ecija cities, 2 Mt Province towns tagged poll 'hotspots'

Fifteen of Nueva Ecija’s 27 towns and four of its five cities have been tagged by the Philippine National Police as election hotspots while two remote villages in ParacelisMountain

Province were declared as such by the Commission on Elections.

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 Jan. 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 sitioApalis, 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.

Meanwhile, 15 of Nueva Ecija’s 27 towns and four of its five cities have been tagged by the PNP as election hotspots.

Senior Supt.Crisaldo Nieves, provincial police director, said their election watch list includes the cities are Cabanatuan, Gapan, Muñoz, and San Jose.

Also tagged as areas of concern were the towns of Aliaga, Bongabon, Cuyapo, Gabaldon, Gen. Natividad, Guimba, Jaen, Licab, Lupao, Quezon, Rizal, San Isidro, Talugtog, San Antonio, and Sto. Domingo.

Among the cities, only Palayan is not included in the list, and among the towns, those not included are Cabiao, Carranglan, Laur, Llanera, Nampicuan, Pantabangan, Peñaranda, San Isidro, San Leonardo, Sta. Rosa, Talavera, and Zaragoza.

Nieves said an area is deemed an election hotspot based on the following parameters: the presence of private armies, organized crime groups or other threat groups; intense political rivalries; poll-related violence; shooting incidents victimizing elected officials; and the proliferation of loose firearms.

Cabanatuan, the province’s commercial and trade center, leads the list due to the intense rivalry between re-electionist Mayor Julius Cesar Vergara and board member Emmanuel Antonio Umali, younger brother of re-electionist Gov. Aurelio Umali.

Both camps traded barbs in the run-up to the aborted Dec. 1 plebiscite to ratify Presidential Proclamation 480 converting Cabanatuan into a highly urbanized city.

The mayoral contest in Gapan is considered heated due to the rivalry between re-electionist Mayor Christian Tinio and MaricelNatividad, daughter of former three-term mayor Ernesto Natividad who has gone into hiding for his alleged involvement in the 2006 raid on a cockpit arena of a political rival whose two sons were among those killed.

In Muñoz, come-backing former three-term mayor Nestor Alvarez is facing Vice Mayor Esther Lazaro in a reprise of a brief power grab by the vice mayor who occupied city hall following a brief disappearance of Alvarez’s brother, Mayor Efren Alvarez, over a criminal case.

In the case of San Jose, it will be a rematch between re-electionist Mayor MarivicBelena and her brother-in-law, former vice mayor Mario Salvador, who lost to her in the 2010 polls.

In Palayan City, the contest between businesswoman Rianne Cuevas and come-backing former three-term mayor PacificoFajardo, also a former three-term congressman, is considered not as heated and politically charged.