SAN FERNANDO CITY, La Union -- The Commission on Elections (COMELEC) Region 1 delivered 219 bundles of election paraphernalia coming from its central office to the provincial government of La Union on October 17.

These materials are intended for use in the upcoming Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections (BSKE) scheduled on October 30.

Among the election paraphernalia handed over to the Provincial Capitol were canvassing forms, paper seals, certificates of receipts for official ballots, official receipts for election returns, envelopes for election returns, envelopes for official ballots, and indelible inks.

These items were distributed by the Provincial Treasurer’s Office (PTO) to Municipal Treasurers across the province on the same day.

Provincial Treasurer Janet  Molina said that her office has already coordinated with local government units (LGUs) and their police to ensure safety in the conduct of the upcoming elections and collaboration with the La Union Police Provincial Office (LUPPO) for other election-related issues and concerns. 

“Nakipag-coordinate na po tayo sa kanya-kanya nilang [LGUs] mga police and we also have our personnel from the LUPPO [to ensure safety and security],” Molina said. 

PCOL Lambert Suerte, provincial director of LUPPO,  said they already have 707 personnel ready to be deployed to the different LGUs in the province and that additional manpower is expected to help the police from the Philippine Army and the Philippine Coast Guard in the coming days.

“We have at least 707 personnel ready to be deployed and we still need at least 136 that will come from other units. We already have 20 – 10 from the Philippine Coast Guard and 10 from the Philippine Army while the remaining will be from the Regional Mobile Force Battalion,” Suerte said.

The province of La Union has a total of 576 barangays in its 19 municipalities and one city. 

A total of 550,243 individuals have registered for the barangay elections while another 183,259 registered for the SK elections. 

The COMELEC also recently published areas of concern for the upcoming BSKE 2023 where La Union logged 47 areas of concern in the towns of Luna, Bauang, Agoo, Caba, and Pugo under yellow category which have occurence of suspected election-related incident (ERI) in the last two elections provided there was no participation of domestic terror groups.

Thus, the COMELEC urged the public  to report all forms of election-related violence by those who are running in the BSKE.  (JCR/AMB/KJCR, PIA La Union)