Comelec places 8 Pangasinan areas in ‘yellow’ category

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has placed Dagupan and Urdaneta cities as well as the towns of Aguilar, Binmaley, Malasiqui, San Quintin, Mangaldan and Sual – all in Pangasinan – under the “yellow” category.

The category, according to the poll body, means that the areas have a history of political unrest.

The Comelec said all eight localities met one of the five criteria to be placed under the yellow category.

These criteria include the occurrence of suspected election-related incidents or ERI in the last two elections, provided there was no participation of domestic terror groups; existence of intense partisan political rivalry with no participation of domestic terror groups; possible employment of private armed groups or potential PAGs by candidates in the area; occurrence of politically motivated ERI in the current election period, provided there is no participation of domestic terror groups; and the area has been previously declared under Comelec control.

Under the Comelec’s color-coding scheme, green means no problem and cause for concern; yellow means it has history of political unrest; orange indicates presence of armed groups, and red as critical areas.

Ericson Oganiza, Pangasinan provincial election supervisor, said the yellow category was ordered by the Comelec central office and was not based on the recommendation of the provincial elections office.

“These are areas of concern, which will be monitored by the police.  Most of these localities have no terrorist or rebel groups. The central office based the categorization on the history of these places on two previous elections, but it doesn’t mean there is chaos in these areas,” Organiza said.