The Philippine National Police (PNP) will hold a thanksgiving mass Monday morning at its headquarters in Camp Crame in Quezon City for what it considered as a job well done for thousands of its personnel who were deployed in far-flung areas and were not even given the chance to vote due to election duties.

“The mass is for our successful effort in turning the May 10 elections as honest, orderly and peaceful,” said Chief Supt. Leonardo Espina, PNP spokesman.

Police officials have all the reason to rejoice since their security plans indeed worked as this year’s 105 election-related violent incident (ERVI) registered a 60 percent decrease compared to the 2004 elections (which had 168 incidents) and 73.3 percent compared to the 2007 polls, which had 182 incidents.

Even last election day, ERVI this year at 44 incidents was low compared to 2004 with 48 and on 2007 with 60.

Why this year’s elections were peaceful was a result of the intense planning that started as early as May last year, according to Director General Jesus Verzosa, PNP chief, who is also regarded as the architect of the May 10 elections security plan.

It all started with the effort to sweep the streets of the confirmed existence of a whopping 1.1 million loose firearms, going with the dictum that one less loose gun in the street is at least one less crime.
Verzosa attributed the May 10 election security success to three major factors, two of them were the aggressive operations to account for loose firearms which was estimated to be at 1.1 million on May last year and the campaign against partisan armed groups (PAGs) of political warlords which was estimated to be at nearly 200 across the country.

“The existence of PAGs and the proliferation of loose firearms are the major factors that contribute to violent incidents,” said Verzosa.

Following the two-month gun amnesty in October and November last year, police have launched a nationwide crackdown on loose firearms that effectively accounted for half of the 1.1 million loose guns that was estimated in May last year.

Verzosa said they reinforced such strategy by recommending a total gun ban for the entire duration of the election period which started last Jan. 10, which the Comelec readily approved, paving the way for the setting up of more than 2,000 checkpoint areas across the country, employing 12,800 policemen and soldiers.

The gun ban netted a total of 2,641 persons from January 10 to May 10, not sparing even soldiers (60 soldiers were arrested) and policemen in which some of the 102 cops collared have been either kicked out of service or demoted. A total of 2,305 firearms were also seized, 860 high-powered and 1,445 are handguns.

On a monthly accounting, 761 were arrested and 635 guns were seized from Jan. 10 to Feb. 9, 560 collared and 498 confiscated from February 10 to March 9, 570 apprehended and 469 guns taken from March 10 to April 9 and 750 netted and 703 seized guns from April 10 to May 10.

The aggressive operations to account for loose firearms were complemented with the security forces’ hard-line stand on PAGs, with the PNP creating a special operating unit for each of the nearly 200 PAGs confirmed to have been existing across the country.

The operations resulted in the dismantling of 38 PAGs, neutralizing 139 leaders and members and the confiscating 167 firearms.

“The rest of the PAGs knew that we have been watching them in a 24-hour basis so we believe that they decided to call off their operations,” said Verzosa.

Notable of the operations was the killing of Michael Terga, PAG leader of former congressman Rodolfo Tuazon, and the arrest of 20 personalities and confiscation of 40 assorted firearms and ammunition in the operations in Calbayog City in Samar and the crippling of the operational capability of nearly 3,000 armed goons of the Ampatuan clan in Maguindanao.

The presence of special operating team monitoring even known political warlords prompted political families in Masbate like the Kho’s Bravos and Seachon-Lanete to surrender their guns to the authorities.

Verzosa said this was the reason why there was a minimal poll-related incident in Masbate and zero incident during election day, which seemed a miracle since the island province in Bicol is a perennial security headache, with supporters and even politicians themselves being killed before the election is held.

The same thing happened in Abra, considered as the “wild-wild-west” in Luzon which was unbelievably peaceful except for some harassments, in which the operations of the PAGs of known political warlords like the Valeras and Lunas were crippled when hundreds of soldiers and policemen were poured in the province prior to the may 10 elections.