DAGUPAN CITY—Police Director General Ricardo Marquez announced the creation of a Special Operations Task Group in Pangasinan relative to its inclusion as one of the six election watch list areas or hotspots in the country this coming election.
Marquez named Senior Supt. Marlou Chan, deputy police regional director for operations, as the head of SOTG that will help the Pangasinan police implement safe and fair election 2016.
Chan was former officer-in-charge of the Pangasinan police provincial office.
Marquez said all the five other provinces named as EWAS were given their respective SOTGs.
Pangasinan is the only province in Region 1 included in the list of EWAs on account of political violence that happened in the 2010 and 2013 election and its current tense political rivalries.
The PNP believes that with the help of SOTG and the people in general, Pangasinan could be removed from the list of EWAS in the 2019 election.
Meanwhile, Supt. Ferdinand de Asis, spokesperson of the Pangasinan Provincial Police Office, said the province expects augmentation troops from the Armed Forces of the Philippines during the polls.
The AFP contingent will be in addition to one company from the Special Action Force and another company from the Regional Public Safety Battalion of the police, he said.
De Asis said the additional forces will boost the strength of the Pangasinan numbering 2,400 to date.
There are now close to three million population in Pangasinan and the police-population ratio is 1:1,000.
