MALOLOS
CITY—Despite tensions and reported malfunction of Precinct Count Optical Scan
(PCOS) machines, elections in Bulacan went generally peaceful, officials said.
Lawyer
Elmo Duque, provincial election supervisor in Bulacan, expressed gratitude to
the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines
(AFP) for maintaining peace and order in the province.
He
said that the PNP and the AFP did a good job in pre-empting the arrest of
suspected armed groups in the province that could have sowed terror and fear to
voters during elections.
“Everything
went very smooth and very peaceful,” Duque said in an interview yesterday. He
added there was no report of any harassment of local voters.
The
same was echoed by Gov. Wilhelmino Alvarado who, after casting his vote, said
that tension was replaced by peoples hope for change.
“By
Philippine standards, our elections in Bulacan are generally peaceful,” Alvarado
said.
He
stressed that the PNP and the AFP did their homework in disbanding suspected
armed groups in the province that resulted in the arrest of 11 suspected New
People’s Army Rebels on May 3 followed by the arrest of six additional armed
men who are suspected to be members of a private army on May 10.
Alvarado
said there were tensions among opposing parties in the province at the close of
the campaign period.
However,
he said that all went silent when the voting began on Monday.
He
specifically cited tense situations in San Rafael, San Miguel and Donya
Remedios town.
With
regards to tension in Malolos City hours before the elections, the governor
said that it stemmed from the intent of both groups to keep the elections
clean.
“They
guarded each other on the allegations that both camps were planning to conduct
vote buying,” he said, referring to the camps of incumbent Mayor Christian
Natividad and former Mayor Danilo Domingo of this city.
The
Malolos incident late Sunday night occurred when Natividad’s supporters massed
near the headquarters of Domingo. They complained that Domingo’s men were
casing Natividad’s headquarters.
But
Domingo said they were only monitoring the situation in response to reports
that vehicles with loads of people were coming to and from Natividad’s
headquarters.
With
regards to incident of vote-buying in the province, Duque said that the PNP is
still investigating incidents.
He
said that one of the closest incidents was the seizure of about a million pesos
in cash in Norzagaray town.
Police
said that the seized cash was meant to be used in buying votes. Dino
Balabo
