Peaceful elections seen in Cavite despite 4 hot spots

CAMP GEN. PANTALEON GARCIA, IMUS, Cavite---The Cavite Police Provincial Office (PPO) sees the mid-term elections in this province as “generally peaceful” despite two cities and two municipalities being considered as potential trouble spots.

Chief Inspector Jonathan Abuel Asnan, chief of the Cavite police Operations and Plans Branch and Police Strategy Management Unit, said the police force is confident the preparations being made by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), the Philippine National Police (PNP), Armed Forces of the Philippines and other concerned authorities are enough to ensure the May polls will proceed without incident.

The Cavite police under Sr. Supt. William M. Segun and the Provincial Commission on Elections under Arnulfo H. Pioquinto named the cities of Trece Martires and Imus, and the towns of Rosario and Maragondon as Election Watchlist Areas (EWAs).

“The EWAs is indeed for us to observe. In fact is that we see the elections in Cavite as generally peaceful with the preparation and measures in place especially those in the EWAs,,” Asnan said.

Trece Martires was included in the list because of the intense political feud between mayoralty candidates Gemma Lubigan and Melencio de Sagun.and the reported presence of Private Armed Groups (PAGs) in the city.

Lubigan is the widow of slain Trece Martires Vice Mayor Alex Lubigan while De Sagun, a former mayor of the city, is the father of incumbent Mayor Melendres de Sagun who was tagged as the alleged prime suspect by the Philippine National Police (PNP), along with others in the killing of Lubigan.

The vice mayor’s car was ambushed in Imus last July 7. One aide of his aides was wounded in the attack.

Melecio De Sagun has denied his involvement in the killing.

Imus was listed due to the intense political rivalry between incumbent Mayor Emmanuel Leonardo Maliksi and Engineer Homer Topacio Saquilayan, a former city mayor.

Maliksi and Saquilayan, who are relatives, are long-time political rivals who got involved in protest in the first automated elections in May 2010. The election was won by Saquilayan but was protested by Maliksi in a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court.

Rosario, a town in the lowland first district, was included in EWAs due to the convoy ambush that killed seven Muslim supporters of Jose “Nonong” Ricafrente and his son Voltaire who were running as vice mayor and mayor, respectively, during the May 2016 elections.