CEMS Bulletin

International Alert’s Critical Events Monitoring System (CEMS) is an SMS-based reporting system that captures conflict incidents and tensions in communities that may or may not lead to the eruption of violence. It is used by its Early Response Network (ERN), a group of men and women in various localities in the Bangsamoro, who share real-time information and work with local governments, key agencies, the security sector, and religious and traditional leaders in coordinating quick and context-specific responses to tensions, violent conflicts, disasters, and displacement, as they happen. Command posts are led by our local partners TASBIKKa, Inc., ERN Lanao del Sur, MARADECA, Inc., and Lupah Sug Bangsamoro Women Association, Inc.

Propaganda, vote-buying, and intimidation amid the election campaign (Preelection)

In a resolution on March 19, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) declared the whole of Mindanao as a ‘red’ election hotspot, judging from violence in the past two elections, and threats posed by armed groups such as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, the Abu Sayyaf Group, the New People’s Army as well as rogue members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Moro National Liberation Front.[1] A red hotspot classification constitutes a warning the election could be interrupted and gives the Comelec the power to put an area under its control and direct the augmentation of the police and armed forces.…Read more

Plebiscite for the ratification of the Bangsamoro Organic Law

The January 21 plebiscite to ratify the Bangsamoro Organic Law will certainly rank as one of the most peaceful political exercises in recent Bangsamoro history. There were many reports of violence but none approximating the magnitude or body count in previous political competitions. Many observers claim that a plebiscite normally induces lower levels of violence in contrast to local elections because rivalries are less intense. There were many accounts of the festive atmosphere that accompanied the voting at the precinct level. From January 19 to 21, International Alert Philippines’s SMS-based Critical Events Monitoring System (CEMS), gathered reports of 56 incidents…Read more