Security and election officials have identified a total of 558 election hotspots across the country, even as they vowed to crush a total of 68 armed groups which they verified to be serving as goons of erring politicians, most of them in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Gen. Victor Ibrado, chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), said the police and the military initially had different figures as to the number of partisan armed groups operating in teh country but came up with the final list of 108 during a joint meeting with the Philippines National Police (PNP) and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in Camp Crame Thursday morning.

We have verified the number and the final list is that there are 43 private armed groups (PAGs) across the country and anothr 23 in ARMM area alone," said Ibrado in an interview.

Ibrado said a total of 102 other PAGs are yet to be validated, 77 of tehm are monitored to be existing in ARMM which is composed of the provinces of Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Lanao del Sur.

"The 102 figure is still subject for validation," said Ibrado.

Director General Jesus Verzosa, PNP chief, said the monotoring conducted by the police's Intelligence Group (IG) resulted in the inclusion of the 558 cities and municipalities in the list of election hotspots.

Of teh figure, Verzosa said a total of 440 are located across the country while the remaining 118 are in the ARMM area alone.

"The existence of threats from various armed groups, intense political rivalry and records of election violence during the 2004 and the 2007 elections were used as the reasons of the inclusion of these cities and municipalities in our election watchlist," said Verzosa in the separate interview.

Except for the election hotspots, Verzosa said the figure on the list of private armed groups may still change, depending on the continued monitoring of teh intelligence units of the police and military.

"Our goal is to dismantle them all before the election period to ensure honest, peaceful, and credible elections", said Verzosa.

Comelec Chairman Jose Melo, for his part, said they are banking on the security measure that were mapped out by both the AFP and PNP in the campaign to get rid of the private armed groups, which are usually the main reason for the high statistics of the poll-related viloence.

But Melo stressed that the implementation of the total gun ban would be of big help in dismantling the private goons of politicians, especially those in the provinces.

"There will be no exemption, we even turned down the requests of some prominent personalities, big shots, to exempt them from the gun ban," said Melo.

If they want to be secured, they have no option but to ask for security personnel from our law enforcement agencies. They cannot carry their own firearms," he added.

In terms of security, Verzosa said a regular candidate is only allowed a total of four security personnel, two of them from law enforcement agencies while the other two may come from PNP-accredited private security agencies.

For senatorial candidate, the official said they will allow six security personnel and six more private security men while a total of 20 for presidential candidates, 10 from law enforcement agencies and 10 more from private security firms.

Meanwhile, Melo said they expect all the machines that would be used in the May 10 elections to arrive in the country before Feb. 14.

"All the other materials taht will be used for our very first automated elections are already here. all the machines are already finished. The only problem is the shipment," said Melo.

He said the shipment would come from Shanghai, China, adding that the only reason why the machines have not been delivered to the country yet is that there are a lot of scheduled shipments in almost all the Chinese shipping lines.

As soon as the machines are delivered, Melo said they will all be stored in a warehouse in Cabuyao, Laguna before they are distributed to various polling precincts across the country.

Asked how safe the warehouse is, Melo said he is certain that it is highly guarded, with several layers of defense in the area.

As to the training of the teachers which would serve as the members of the Board of Election Inspectors, he said they would start the massive training by March.