CIDG head Magalong to Abra pols, elders: Stop poll violence

BANGUED, Abra – Politicians and community leaders were urged by Police Director General Benjamin Magalong, chief of the Directorate for Investigation and Detection Management here last week to push for peace with rising violence in Abra leading to the May polls next year.

“Kayo pong matatanda, mga political leaders, what are you doing now? Ang ginagawa po ninyo ngayon, whether you will advocate for peace or whether you advocate it for violence, ang makikinabang o maapektuhan po niyan ay ang mga kabataan ngayon. Saan po kayo ngayon, anong pipilin ninyo, is it peace or is it violence? It is not for me to decide, it’s not for the armed forces or PNP to decide, but it is you Abrenians and again that is a challenge to you,” Magalong said.

Occasion was the 8th Abra Week for Peace at Camp Juan Villamor.

During signing of peace agreement among political leaders, Magalong said, who was responsible for making Abra peaceful during his stint as Cordillera police director  said, “Establishing a peacekeeping strategy was not easy, there were many challenges, there were serious obstacle, but we pursued it and we succeeded. That was because we only had one goal of making it, to make Abra peaceful and we attribute it to the stakeholders who were united to the purpose that time; it is because there was unity of purpose among the stakeholders at that time.”

He added it was four years ago when he appeared before politicians in Abra to talk about a peace covenant prior to the 2013 election period.

But he said at present, there were some politicians who are setting aside their goal to attain peace during the election.

He said it is a challenge for them, the law enforcers to continue to aim for “zero political crime incidents,” same as what was achieved in the 2013 midterm and barangay polls.

He said that what was achieved in 2013 to make the politicians support the peacekeeping strategy took time. “Nagawa natin noong 2013 and it took one and half month to pursue to push the peacekeeping strategy. Now this 2016 election, do you want to go back to the dark days and start down zero?”

“We in the PNP and AFP, we are very much committed in the peacekeeping strategy for Abra,” said Magalong. “You should be proud that the peacekeeping strategy was not only pursued by the PNP, AFP and the provincial government, but the entire people of Abra.”

Magalong added, “here in Abra, the elders, the political leader, together with the security forces should plant the right seeds. What do you want for the young generation? What will happen to them? Whom will they follow? I post those questions which I hope you will ponder on.”

Magalong, then as Cordillera police director  individually talked to politicians, a strategy he called conflict mediation and diffusion (CMD), which aimed to make  rival politicians from doing political crimes.

Before that, Abra was tagged, “killing fields of the North”.