Roxas: We will enforce law vs private armies

The government will crack down on private armed groups and their patrons to ensure peaceful and orderly elections next year, Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas said Wednesday. In an ambush interview at Camp Aguinaldo, Roxas declared that no one is untouchable, including politicians who maintain armed groups. “[I]f they are identified to be harboring or protecting [private armed groups], they will be charged [in court],” said Roxas, but added that he does not know if having an armed group would disqualify a candidate from running.   “We will talk to them, but make no mistake, we will enforce the law,” he said. “We will closely look into this. We will not let this pass. There’s going to be no patronage. Our objective here is peaceful, orderly elections.”   With the country only seven months away from the 2013 national and local polls on May 13, Roxas said that it would be “negligence on our part” if the government did not execute measures against these groups—including checkpoints, intelligence operations, raids, and a review of provincial and regional police reports on election-related violence. “All these data would be consolidated so that we will have a clear picture on the threat situation in areas, threat situation from criminality, ordinary or regular criminality, threat situation on private armed groups and specially threat situation on electoral violence,” he said. — BM/KBK, GMA News