The Commission on Elections on Monday revealed that it has yet to discuss with authorities whether to declare Negros Oriental as an election hotspot for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections on 30 October.
Comelec chairperson George Erwin Garcia — who was present in a House Ethics Committee hearing on Negros Oriental Representative Arnolfo Teves Jr.’s non-attendance on the House floor — said that they are yet to meet with representatives from the country’s police and military forces in a command conference in July.
“The Armed Forces of the Philippines has yet to say anything on that. They don’t have a report yet,” Garcia said.
He maintained the need for a public hearing with the poll body, authorities and residents of the province to decide on the fate of the BSKE in the province, amid issues in political violence following the death of Negros Oriental Governor Roel Degamo last March.
Section 5 of the Omnibus Election Code of the Philippines allows the poll body to postpone the polls in an area “for any serious cause such as violence, terrorism, loss or destruction of election paraphernalia or records, force majeure, and other analogous causes of such a nature that the holding of a free, orderly and honest election should become impossible in any political subdivision.”
Garcia revealed that the BSKE has become ‘hotly contested’ which needs monitoring nationwide.