ZARAGOZA, Nueva Ecija - "No armed private armies, please."
This was the soft refrain of the warning sounded by Philippine National Police Director General Oscar C. Calderon yesterday against politicians who will be gunning for positions come the 2007 elections.Calderon said that if the politicians should insist on putting up their own private armies they would surely be running afoul of the law and he said the police would apply the full force of the law no matter who gets hurt.
The PNP chief's warning gains special significance considering recent experiences where this province has been declared one of the Central Luzon region's election hot spots due to killings of some political personalities.He disclosed that they are having a tough time dissuading Mindanao politicians from resorting to the carrying of firearms due to the tense security situation in the area.
But, he said, the civilian security volunteers of the local politicians there are being required to be listed as police auxiliary groups.
The police auxiliary groups are being trained on the rudiments of responsibility of armed body guards securing local government officials, including the registration of firearms they are using.Calderon's appeal for sobriety in the coming elections attains special meaning since he hails from Nueva Ecija, being a native of Aliaga town, in the light of several violent incidents being linked to political rivalries in several towns in the province in the past.
Last year, however, Nueva Ecija has not been declared an election hot spot and a generally peaceful election has been held with only a few mayoral contests put to protests but has all now been resolved in the lower courts.Calderon was here where he formally graced the ground-breaking ceremony for the Zaragoza police station.Calderon was assisted in the formal ground-breaking rites by Zaragoza Mayor Teodorico Cornes, PRO3 director Chief Superintendent Ismael Rafanan, and Nueva Ecija police director, Senior Superintendent Alex Paul Monteagudo.
Meanwhile, according to Superintendent Roel Obusan, chief of the provincial police intelligence and investigation bureau, their province-wide campaign has resulted in the confiscation of several high-powered firearms and the filing of illegal firearms and explosives possession against their possessors.
Obusan has credited the police's mobile checkpoints in their successful campaign not only on illegal firearms possession but on various street crimes leading to arrests of suspects who have led them to the arrest of notorious enemies of the state. - MAGTANGGOL C. VILAR
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