Marawi City police said parliamentary elections held on September 14, 2026 were the most peaceful and orderly the city has seen. Raphael Bosano, ABS-CBN News
MARAWI CITY — After several elections marred by mauling, mobbing and shooting incidents, the historic Bangsamoro parliamentary polls in Marawi City went by peacefully — something which officials say is a win not only for the city but for the region.
In Barangay Sagonsongan — the largest in Marawi and which houses precincts for some 18 barangays or 15,000 voters — the typical midday scuffle among supporters was replaced by orderly lines, calm voices but also very stern authorities who were determined to avoid any of the past mobbing from happening again.
Speaking to ABS-CBN News, Marawi City Elections Office Atty. Norpaisa Manduyog attributes this to their constant coordination with stakeholders, especially the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
She said the first consideration was making sure people felt secure.
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“Kasi pag ang mga tao, feeling secured sila definitely pupunta sila sa mga voting centers nila para bumoto,” she said.
(Because if people feel secure, they will definitely go to the voting centers.)
Unlike in the past, Maduyog said, they planned out strategic entrance and exit points and only let voters into precincts in batches of 10, to avoid congestion.
“Nakita natin na kahit maraming barangays ang bumoboto sa Sagonsongan, maayos po yung naging botohan dahil ginawa natin ang lahat.”
(We can see that even if many barangays are voting in Sagonsongan, voting is orderly because we did everything to make it that way.)
But the elections did not come without hiccups. As of 2 p.m., the official said at least 10 contingency machines had to be deployed to precincts after some automated counting machines overheated and malfunctioned.
Meanwhile, Marawi City chief of police PLtCol Muhiddin Pagayawan said that this is, by far, the most peaceful elections the city has witnessed.
“Since the distribution of ACMs and official ballots, ni isang untoward incident wala tayong recorded sa city (we have not recorded even one untoward incident in the city),” he said.
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Pagayawan said early preparations and constant engagement with communities were a big factor to the peaceful polls in the city.
He added only two precincts experienced delays in the start of the voting process due to the late arrival of poll watchers and not on the part of the electoral board.
Officials said they paln to build on the gains that they’ve made this elections so that they can also apply it in the 2028 national elections.