Poll body places 8 Pangasinan localities on yellow category

BAGUIO CITY (February 10, 2025) -- Dagupan and Urdaneta City including Aguilar, Binmaley, Malasiqui, San Quintin, Mangaldan, and Sual tows in Pangasinan were placed by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) under yellow category in the upcoming May 2025 midterm elections.

According to the poll body, these areas have one of the five criteria under the yellow category like the occurrence of suspected election-related incident (ERI) in the last two elections provided there was no participation of domestic terror groups, existence of intense partisan political rivalry with no participation of domestic terror groups, possible employment of private armed groups (PAGs) or potential PAGs by candidates in the area, occurrence of politically motivated ERI in the current election period provided there is no participation of domestic terror groups, and the area has been previously declared under Comelec control.

According to the Comelec’s color-coding scheme, green means no problem and cause for concern; yellow means it has history of political unrest; orange indicates the presence of armed groups, and red as critical areas.

Pangasinan Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Ericson Oganiza said the categorization was decided by the central office and was not based on the recommendation of the provincial elections office.

"These are areas of concern, which will be monitored by the police. Most of these localities have no terrorist or rebel groups. The central office based the categorization on the history of these places on two previous elections, but it doesn't mean there is chaos in these areas," Organiza explained in Filipino.

"There were no violence in most of these areas," the provincial election official though claimed, re-assuring the categorization will not affect the peace and order situation in Pangasinan.