Lorenzana orders military troops doing election duties ''to stay on your feet until told to stand down''
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana ordered military troops performing election duties not to rest until they told to do so.
"To those performing election duties, stay on your feet until told to stand down," the defense chief said Monday.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Ano said he ordered uniformed personnel to maintain peace and order as there are other precincts that are not yet done.
"As long as they are still within the vicinity of the polling center, 30 meters around if they are there they can still vote even if it is already close, they will be allowed to vote, but at the same time we still need to monitor because while the machines are transmitting the votes, it can still be sabotage... we will not let this happen," he said.
Ano said despite the election related violent incidents recorded in some parts of the country, the 2022 national election is "relatively peaceful".
"Actually if we are going to look at it the election was relatively peaceful, orderly and peaceful and we can say honest, because we were able to prevent the attempts of some groups to create atrocities, to threaten the voters, so the people were able to go out and cast their votes," said Ano.
Despite numerous reports about the malfunctioning vote counting machines, Ano said it is just a small percentage while describing the election related violence as "very isolated."
"There are vote counting machines that had problems but these are just one percent and they were fixed. The violence that were reported by the PNP and AFP, they are few, very isolated and if we are going to look at it mostly are from Maguindanao area and Lanao del Sur, In Luzon we only have Abra, and Nueva Ecija those are the only areas where we recorded violent incident," he said.
Col. Ramon Zagala, AFP spokesman, said a total of 15 election related incidents were recorded since Sunday up to the election day.
"We have recorded from last night 15 election related violent incidents. Although there are 15 election related violent incidents we were able to respond immediately, so we are able to stabilize the situation in those areas that are slightly critical by shifting forces and because of that the election continues," he said.
Our assessment as of now is that the election is successful through our support to Comelec and PNP. We can say that despite the 15 election related violent incidents our presence has provided confidence to our people to vote and prevented those who have planned atrocities in carrying it out and so therefore majority of the areas where we were deployed, its peaceful and we are able to secure it so that the people can vote," he added. Robina Asido/DMS
