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John Unson - Philstar.com
June 24, 2026 | 3:17pm
The high-level election security conference on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, at the headquarters of the Western Mindanao Command was attended by ranking police and military officials from across the Bangsamoro region.
Philstar.com / John Unson
COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Commission on Elections, the police and military have expanded the parameters of the security preparations for the first-ever September 14 parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, officials announced on Wednesday.
The intricacies and ramifications of the massive inter-agency initiatives in ensuring peaceful and clean elections in BARMM were discussed in length by ranking state security officials based in Mindanao and representatives from the Commission on Elections during a high-level conference on Tuesday, June 23, in the headquarters of the military’s Western Mindanao Command in Calarian, Zamboanga City.
Comelec Chairman Erwin George Garcia and the commander of WestMinCom, Army Lt. Gen. Donald Gumiran, together presided over Tuesday's election-related security conference at WestMinCom's headquarters.
Gumiran told reporters on Wednesday that officials of the Army’s 1st and 6th Infantry Divisions, Brig. Gen. Christopher Abecia, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, and his counterpart in Region 9, Brig. Gen. Dennis Esguerra, and Comelec's regional director for BARMM, the lawyer Ray Sumalipao, attended the conference.
Gumiran and Major. Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, commander of 6th ID securing BARMM’s Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte provinces and Cotabato City, had separately told reporters that measures to ensure safe and honest regional elections were discussed and set during their meeting, to be enforced before and during the actual polling day.
Army and police officials present in the conference, including Abecia, the newly-installed PRO-BAR director, had told reporters that Garcia was elated with their commitment to help the Comelec, as its deputies, make the elections orderly and free from fraud.
By outright implication of state electoral laws, personnel of the Philippine National Police, the Armed Forces and other government-law enforcement agencies are to function as deputies of the Comelec during electoral exercises.
Gumiran and Cagara had also separately told reporters in Cotabato City that they appreciate the earlier announcement by officials of four of the 16 regional parties to participate in the September 14 polls, about their readiness to sign a common manifesto pledging support for Comelec’s security plans related to the September 14 elections.
Officials of the four parties, the Bangsamoro Party of the Moro National Liberation Front, the Serbisyong Inklusibo, Alyansang Progresibo, the Bangsamoro People’s Party and the Bangsamoro Federalist Party, were quoted in radio reports last week as saying that they are also ready to swear over the Quran to abide with the Omnibus Election Code and help ensure peaceful and credible regional elections on September 14.
Gumiran said he is thankful to the police and military officials who attended Tuesday’s conference at their headquarters in Calarian in Zamboanga City.
He said officials of the Philippine Coast Guard and the Philippine Navy based in Mindanao also participated in the conference, during which they assured Comelec officials of their preparedness to enforce election security contingencies under the poll body’s guidance.
