Police, poll officials related to candidates will be transferred

QUENERY

Officials from both the Police Regional Office (PRO) and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Central Visayas who have relatives running in next month’s Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections, will be transferred to another station.

This was one of the major points agreed at during Friday’s command conference between law enforcement agencies and Comelec-7 officials at the Cebu Provincial Legislative Building.

PRO-7 Director Chief Supt. Robert Quenery said that the move is made to ensure that the integrity and credibility of both agencies will remain intact before, during, and after the conduct of the midterm polls.

The Barangay and SK elections is slated on May 14.

The election period, Quenery informed, runs from April 14 to May 21. During this time, the election gun ban will take effect. The campaign period on the other hand will be from May 4 to 12.

Quenery said that they hope to determine which officers will be transferred a day before the start of the campaign period or a week before election day.

Quenery added that they will also evaluate which chief of police in the region will be transferred specifically those who have been holding said position for quite sometime.

Meanwhile, Comelec-7 Director Rafael Olaño said that a reshuffling is usually done in the agency especially if there are candidates related to election officers (EOs).

“If the EOs have relatives who are running, we transfer them to preserve our impartiality,” Olaño said.

Both Quenery and Olaño said that the reshuffling will only be on the local level and not region wide and that after the election, the transferred officers will return to their original offices.