The Philippine National Police (PNP) will raise a full alert status starting Saturday to ensure peaceful and orderly midterm elections on 12 May 2025.

In a statement, the PNP said that under a full alert status, all police personnel will be prohibited from taking leave to guarantee sufficient deployment across the country.  

PNP chief Police General Rommel Marbil said the PNP’s primary focus is securing the elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).

“All of us would keep a tight watch. This is why I have said, all police officers during the election, as much as possible, they should have participated in the early voting. We all need to work on election day. We need all police officers, that is what we want. We will make sure this is the safest election,” Marbil said on Friday at Camp Crame.

Banac said they are closely coordinating with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard to ensure honest, orderly, and peaceful elections in the region.

In a separate statement, Police Lieutenant General Bernard Banac, commander of the Area Police Command-Western Mindanao (APC-WM), said that 2,831 of the 3,734 police officers assigned as Special Electoral Board members in the BARMM have already been deployed.

These officers come from 14 other police regional offices and the PNP Maritime Group and will serve in various localities across the five provinces and three cities of the BARMM.

Banac said they are closely coordinating with the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine Coast Guard to ensure honest, orderly and peaceful elections in the region.

Banac concurrently serves as the commander of the Special Task Force (STF)-BARMM, which oversees all security and public safety operations for the BARMM election in the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, Basilan and Tawi-Tawi; the cities of Cotabato, Marawi and Lamitan; and the 63 barangays of Cotabato province that are administratively part of the BARMM Special Geographical Area.

He also expressed gratitude to local government leaders and candidates for their cooperation and support of the peace initiatives of APC-WM and STF-BARMM. TDT