LAGAWE, Ifugao – The newly-appointed chairman of the Regional Peace and Order Council (RPOC) in the Cordillera should sustain existing programs that were proven to keep the peace and order regionwide amidst patches of threats to the stability of lasting peace.
Gov. Dennis Habawel, RPOC chairman, said concerned government agencies and all local governments regionwide must be able to work out innovations to existing peace and order initiatives in order to permanently ward off the threats to the stability in the different parts of the region.
“We believe the peace and order initiatives are already in place. We just want to enhance them in preparation for next year’s synchronized elections so that we will be able to thwart inherent threats to peace and order,” Habawel stressed.
He pointed out the RPOC must be on the lookout for possible threats to the upcoming elections that is why concerned law enforcement agencies will be tasked to outline their initiatives to thwart whatever evil motives of people in order to sustain peace and order regionwide.
Habawel was appointed by President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III on May 21, 2015 upon the recommendation of Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel ‘Mar’ Roxas and formally took his oath last week.
Aside from the need to prepare for next year’s synchronized elections, the governor underscored the importance of pursuing the government’s anti-insurgency campaign and significantly reducing criminality in the countryside in order to keep track of the attainment of lasting peace.
With barely less than a year before the May 9, 2016 elections, he cited there is already a need for concerned government agencies and local governments to craft the appropriate approaches on how to deal with the expected occurrence of election-related violence and incidents, especially to those areas that have history of violence without compromising interventions to peaceful areas in order to avert disruptions that might affect the conduct of honest, orderly and peaceful elections regionwide.
“We are ready for the elections. It is j7ust to keep the ball rolling and improve on our deficient in the past so that we will be able to keep the elections in most parts of the region peaceful and avoid isolated incidents of violence related to intensed political rivalry,” Habawel added.
According to him, the reign of peace in the region should not be a license to be laxed but it should be a motivation for law enforcement agencies to think out of the box in order to effectively and efficiently combat whatever threats that might compromise the existing peace and order situation as of this time.
He appealed to local residents to cooperate with the RPOC’s programs and projects that will be put in place in the future in order to be able to jointly thwart the occurrence of incidents that might taint the existing initiatives that are already in place for the meantime.
By Dexter A. See
