83 b’gays tagged as hot spots

Top police officials are closely watching 83 barangays in Metro Manila tagged as "hot spots" in the coming barangay elections Monday next week.

Metro Manila police chief Deputy Director General Edgar Aglipay said station commanders or their deputies will be dispatched to "hot spots" to ensure peaceful and orderly barangay elections.

"Special attention should be given to these areas so a station commander or his deputies will be assigned to personally supervise the elections in these barangays," said Aglipay.

According to Aglipay, Senior Superintendent Louie Palmera, intelligence chief of the National Capital Regional Police Office (NCRPO), is presently coordinating with the Directorate of Intelligence (DI) in Camp Crame to update their list of "hot spots" in Metro Manila. "We cannot reveal as yet the barangays or the towns and cities concerned but I assure you that our preparations are now underway," he said.

The NCRPO will hold its last coordinating conference on Saturday to discuss their preparations in the coming July 15 barangay elections.

But as of July 3, Aglipay said they received no reports of election-related incidents in Metro Manila’s 13 cities and four municipalities.

Aglipay said he intend to dispatch top police officials in the various "hot spots" for them to secure ballot boxes from warehouses to voting precincts.

"We expect them also to be around during the counting and proclamation of winning candidates to prevent any untoward incidents," said Aglipay.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has allotted a special fund for the NCRPO for the barangay elections but Aglipay refused to reveal the exact figure. He promised, however, to distribute the funds to district and station commanders this coming Saturday. – Non Alquitran