BAGUIO CITY — Enlisted personnel and selected cadets from the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) here will temporarily fill up the vacuum left by the two groups of city and provincial public safety management companies in this mountain resort city and in nearby Benguet province which were deployed in the conflict-stricken province of Abra to beef up the security in the place.

This was disclosed by Chief Supt. Villamor Bumanglag, regional director of the Police Regional Office (PRO) in the Cordillera, who added the deployment of more policemen and military in Abra is based on the recommendations from independent groups conducting an assessment and evaluation of the situation in the place.

The two groups from the city and provincial public safety maneuver companies are composed of 240 elements that are considered as one of the elite forces of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

Before the two companies of policemen were deployed in Abra, Bumanglag claimed they were able to seek the assistance of PMA in filling the slack left out by the forces until after the elections and when the situation normalizes in the province.

According to Bumanglag, those to be deployed by PMA are of equal competence to the re-assigned law enforcers, thus, local residents in Baguio and Benguet need not to worry about the situation because the strength of the city and provincial police offices are still enough to maintain peace and order in the two local governments as shown in the past elections.

Bumanglag explained the law enforcers were preferably pulled out from Baguio and Benguet because the said places have been assessed and evaluated as the most peaceful places in the region during elections.

Furthermore, the pullout of the policemen and their subsequent deployment to Abra passed through a rigid assessment and evaluation of the risks involved and its benefits, thus, it was not hastily done just to prejudice other areas.

At present, there are at least 1,500 police and military deployed in Abra just to sustain the national government’s effort to keep the province from violence during the conduct of elections.

While various sectors assured their support to peace initiatives in the province, Bumanglag pointed out there should be no time to relax since unscrupulous individuals might take advantage of the situation and resort to politically-motivated violence just to advance their own personal and political interests.