ILOILO City – The New People’s Army (NPA) in Panay and Negros islands supported at least 15 candidates in the recent barangay election, according to the Philippine Army’s 3rd Infantry Division (3ID).
Some of these candidates were reelectionist barangay captains and councilmen, said Captain Eduardo Precioso, 3ID spokesperson.
As of this writing, however, Precioso did not have information on how these candidates fared in the polls.
“Barangay officials are not supposed to solicit help from rebels,” said Precioso.
These rebel-supported candidates were from villages where insurgency remained a problem, according to Precioso but he did not identify these barangays.
Based on the Police Regional Office 6’s (PRO-6) data on election watchlist areas (EWAS) or hotspots, 74 barangays in Negros Occidental alone have insurgency problems.
In the whole Western Visayas, the PRO-6 listed 135 EWAS.
There were three EWAS categories. These were:
* Category 1 – barangays with history of election-related violence and intense political rivalries
* Category 2 – barangays with insurgency problems
* Category 3 – barangays with both categories 1 and 2 concerns
“As soon as we have confirmed the names of these rebel-supported candidates, monitoring would be launched,” said Precioso./PN
