The Philippine National Police (PNP) was placed on heightened alert ahead of the country’s celebration of Undas or All Saints Day and All Souls Day, its spokesperson said Wednesday.

In a press briefing, PNP spokesperson Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo said: “Effective since yesterday, our APCs (area police commands) and PROs (police regional offices) are under heightened alert as part of our security plan for Undas.”

She said they have not monitored any threats so far.

“For now, we have not monitored any credible and serious threats to the observation of Undas. But like we always say, we are maintaining our security stance and measures as well as our coordination with other security forces to make sure that no security threats slip past us,” she said.

According to Fajardo, around 21,000 police personnel will be deployed, which is around 3,000 more than their 18,000 projected deployment.

“The RDs (regional directors) were given prerogative and discretion to increase their deployment depending on the prevailing security situation in their areas,” she said.

Fajardo said that around 75 percent of the police forces will be deployed for Undas, mostly from regional offices and area police commands.

She added that at the national headquarters, they have a Reactionary Standby Support Force (RSSF) that is “readily available” and that it would be deployed when needed. Jaspearl Tan/DMS