PNP: No private armed groups in Negros Oriental

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines  — The Negros Oriental Police Provincial Office has disclosed there are currently no private armed groups (PAGS) in Negros Oriental that would pose a security threat during the 2016 elections.

Senior Superintendent Roy Abella, deputy director of the NOrPPO, issued this statement during the first consultation forum of the Diocesan Electoral Board of the Diocese of Dumaguete this week.

In that forum, Abella allayed public speculation of armed men arriving in the city, after unverified information recently circulated through text messages and the social media saying the kidnap-for-ransom Abu Sayyaf Group was targeting this capital city as well as its neighboring towns.

These reports came, even as a Philippine Navy patrol boat was photographed off the coast of Negros Oriental while law enforcement agencies have beefed up security measures especially in the southern towns of the province down to Sipalay in Negros Occidental.

Abella also disclosed that police stations in the six cities and 19 towns of the province have been carrying out checkpoints at least twice a day.

The NOrPPO, headed by Senior Superintendent Dionardo Carlos, will be holding a command conference next week with the police chiefs and other unit commanders to discuss a number of concerns, including PAGs, and other security matters.

The Philippine Army, for its part, had also reassured during the DEB meeting, it had received the same intelligence reports on the alleged plan of the Abu Sayyaf to come to Dumaguete but these remained unconfirmed, said Major Dranreb Canto of the 302nd Infantry Brigade.

The DEB is a non-profit, non-partisan group advocating for clean, honest, peaceful and orderly elections in 2016 and is composed of church-based groups, law enforcement agencies, government and non-government organizations and agencies and the media, among others. — (FREEMAN)