1,000-man Task Force CHOP activated in Maguindanao

• Source:http://www.mb.com.ph/1000-man-task-force-chop-activated-in-maguindanao/
• Saturday, May 7, 2016

By Ali G. Macabalang

And how they rise above them because they’re awesome

Cotabato City — The Maguindanao-based Sixth Infantry Division (6th ID) has activated its 1,000-member security task force to help ensure peaceful proceedings in Monday’s polls in Central Mindanao, especially in areas of electoral concern in the province.

Maj. Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan, 6ID commanding general, has tapped his division’s chief-of- staff Col. Romeo Brawner as head of the Task Force CHOP (clean, honest, orderly and peaceful elections).

Discussions during the task force’s ceremonial revival said Brawner and his men will be backed by dozens of combat vehicles, tanks and motorized watercrafts for security operations in far-flung areas, particularly in marshlands and polling precincts along rivers across the adjoining North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces.

Pangilinan said the group, which will also be beefed up by snipers, will operate under the supervision of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), which earlier classified Maguindanao as one of country’s eight “areas of immediate concern.”

“These men will engage without any hesitation saboteurs or armed groups out to derail the conduct of the elections in any of the municipalities under the jurisdiction of the 6th ID,” Pangilinan told reporters.

The task force was presented at the 6th ID’s parade ground southwest of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao on Thursday afternoon by Pangilinan and Major Gen. Eduardo Año, the Philippine Army chief.

Pangilinan said the election security duties of the task force would be coordinated properly with the ceasefire bodies of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The MILF had earlier said it will reposition its forces away from guerrilla enclaves near polling centers before May 9 for Comelec personnel and teachers to freely operate and serve voting folks without security apprehensions.

News about the activation of the task force was welcomed by officials and residents of Maguindanao and North Cotabato.

The Army contingent is a revival of the erstwhile Task Force HOPE (honest, orderly and peaceful elections), which was credited for helping restore in the 2010 elections among Maguindanao voters their rights of suffrage allegedly crippled in political exercises prior to the infamous Nov. 23, 2009 election-related Ampatuan massacre.