The Philippine National Police (PNP) reported on Monday that 55 people died during the observance of the Lenten season, with most of the deaths attributed to drowning.
PNP chief Director General Oscar D. Albayalde told a news briefing that the deaths were recorded from April 5 up to April 21 amid PNP’s heightened alert status.
The rest of the deaths were due to road accidents, an electrocution and a single report of shooting.
Albayalde said that 24,779 policemen remain deployed in 4,732 police assistance centers situated in strategic locations along main thoroughfares and travel routes, and in vital installations and mass transportation terminals in order to assist travelers returning to the urban centers from the Holy Week holidays.
“Although alert conditions in some regions have been considerably downgraded, and the NHQ Reactionary Standby Support Force [RSSF] for SUMVAC [Summer Vacation] 2019 has been deactivated, the orders of the National Headquarters to personnel manning the police assistance centers is to remain in their posts until after all travelers have returned to their destinations,” he said.
Albayalde said that except for some isolated incidents reported in several regions, the observance of the Holy Week was generally peaceful, without any significant untoward incident in the magnitude of a national emergency.
The PNP will be making the necessary adjustments to beef up election security and law-enforcement operations, particularly in enforcing the nationwide election gun ban and operations against private armed groups, gun-for-hire syndicates and criminal organizations that pose a threat to peaceful polls.
As of Monday, a total of 4,566 people have been arrested for violating the gun ban that resulted in the confiscation of 3,807 firearms, 256 grenades, 500 explosive devices, 32,000 rounds of live ammunition and 1,554 other deadly weapons.