Palawan plebiscite orderly, generally peaceful —PNP

The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Wednesday said the conduct of the Palawan plebiscite was orderly and generally peaceful as no untoward incident was reported.

In a statement, PNP officer-in-charge Police Lieutenant General Guillermo Lorenzo Eleazar said 920 police personnel were deployed to provide security to voters and election officials in 487 polling centers.

“The local Plebiscite to ratify Republic Act 11259, held in the province of Palawan on March 13, 2021, was generally peaceful and orderly with no untoward incident reported,” he said.

However, Eleazar said there were some difficulties in the delivery of election materials to polling centers due to transportation and weather issues.

Minor problems in the relay of information due to poor signal reception and bad weather conditions were also reported, he added.

According to Eleazar, the biggest challenge in the plebiscite was ensuring the compliance of people to health and safety protocols during mass gatherings.

The PNP-COMELEC-AFP Joint Task Force was activated with police units from the Palawan Police Provincial Office, Puerto Princesa City Police Office, PNP Maritime Group and Regional Mobile Force Battalion of MIMAROPA, and military units from the AFP Western Command and Philippine Coast Guard.

“Local communist terrorist groups and its front organizations and other domestic threat groups were effectively rendered immobile by proactive security measures, and were actively prevented from engaging in any form of prohibited actions that threatened the otherwise peaceful and orderly plebiscite,” Eleazar said.

Results of the voting as of Tuesday showed that Palawan voters rejected dividing the province into three new entities.

Commission on Elections spokesperson James Jimenez said the Board of Canvassers canvassed a total of 172,304 'no' votes and 122,223 'yes' votes with only one municipality left unaccounted for.

“Canvass results from Kalayaan are not expected to arrive today, due to the unavailability of transport. Kalayaan has 281 registered voters,” Jimenez said.

President Rodrigo Duterte signed a law in 2019 dividing Palawan into three provinces: Palawan del Norte, Palawan Oriental, and Palawan del Sur. —Joviland Rita/KBK, GMA News