CABANATUAN CITY – Commuters plying routes here should expect more anti-criminality checkpoints soon, owing to the forthcoming plebiscite for the upgrading of this city from component to a highly urbanized one.
Supt. Pedro Soliba, city police chief, said at least six checkpoints manned by combined forces of police and military men will guard the city’s major roads as well as strategic entries and exit points “once the Comelec issues the calendar of activities, particularly on the gun ban.”
Soliba said he received from lawyer Arsenio Reyes, city election officer, a copy of the Comelec minute resolution which sets the plebiscite on January 25. “But We don’t have the calendar of activities as to the schedule of the gun ban,” he said. Soliba requested at least 200 policemen and Army contingents from Nueva Ecija police director Senior Supt. Crizaldo Nieves, to augment local police forces in keeping order for the polls.
The fi rst wave of campaign for the conversion of the city that was originally set on Dec. 1, 2012 was marred by controversy with the killing of broadcaster Julius Cauzo on Nov. 8. Investigators, however, have yet to identify the killers or brains and motive behind the crime.
The contingents, Solba said, will help organic policemen in conducting anti-criminality checkpoints 24/7, especially once the Comelec issues calendar of activities, particularly on gun ban. “So far, all we have here is the minute resolution.
We have yet to receive the calendar of activities,” Soliba said. But the police, he added, is ready to keep order. “We actually expect this plebiscite to be peaceful because this is not an election of partisan politics.”
