Election-related violence leaves several dead in southern Philippines
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Voters wait in line outside a polling station for the nationwide village and youth elections in Manila on Oct 30.
PHOTO: AFP
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MANILA - At least four people were killed in the restive southern Philippines on Monday as millions turned out to vote for village leaders following months of deadly poll-related violence.
Security forces were on high alert across the country for the long-delayed nationwide vote for more than 336,000 council positions.
While villages are the lowest-level government unit, the council posts are hotly contested. They are used by political parties to cultivate grassroots networks and build a support base for local and general elections.
More than 300,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed to secure polling stations in over 42,000 villages.
In the capital Manila, voters waited in long lines to cast their ballots at schools being used as polling venues.
“This is important for the people... we need to be able to consult someone over our problems,” said Ms Rosemarie Garcia in the neighbourhood of Tondo. “We need somebody who is easily approachable to his or her constituents.”
Elections are a traditionally volatile time in the Philippines, which has lax gun laws and a violent political culture.
Commission on Elections chairman George Garcia said voting had been “generally peaceful” except for several incidents on the southern island of Mindanao.
Two people were killed, and five others wounded on Monday outside a polling station in Maguindanao del Norte province, police said.
The shoot-out happened during a confrontation between supporters of rival candidates for village captain, said Lieutenant-Colonel Esmail Madin, police chief of Datu Odin Sinsuat municipality.
In another incident on Mindanao, a woman was killed when a gunfight broke out after a van carrying a village captain and her supporters was stopped on the road by people backing her rival in Lanao del Norte province, the army said.
In a separate incident, the husband of a village captain in Lanao del Sur province died after he was shot in the chest during a confrontation with his wife’s rival, police said.
In 2009, before it was divided into two provinces, Maguindanao was the scene of the country’s deadliest single incident of political violence on record.
Fifty-eight people were massacred as gunmen allegedly working for a local warlord attacked a group of people to stop a rival from filing his election candidacy.
‘Very important’ result
In the run-up to Monday’s vote, there were 30 confirmed incidents of election-related violence, compared with 35 in 2018, said the Philippine National Police on Sunday, without providing an updated breakdown for the number of dead and injured.
About one-third of the incidents happened in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Previous police data showed eight people were killed and seven injured in poll-related violence between Aug 28 and last Wednesday.
More than 67 million people are registered to vote in the elections that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr described on Monday as “very important” for higher-level politicians.
“What happens here in the barangay (village)... is going to have an effect on the results of the midterm elections and subsequently at the national elections,” Mr Marcos said after casting his vote in his family’s stronghold of Batac City in the northern province of Ilocos Norte.
“If other barangays tell you ‘I will deliver 350 votes for you in my barangay’, rest assured, you will get 350. That’s why the result is very important.”
Polling stations were due to close at 3pm local time, but voting was extended in some places.
Mr Garcia said vote counting was under way and the results would be announced late on Monday.
Voters chose a village captain and seven councillors responsible for implementing national policies, resolving neighbourhood disputes, and providing basic public services.
A mother with her child looks through voting documents at a polling station in Manila.
PHOTO: AFP
Village councils also enable politicians to “disseminate funds and other favours to secure votes”, said Professor Maria Ela Atienza, a political science expert at the University of the Philippines.
Village elections are supposed to be held every three years, but the last polls were in 2018.
They were postponed by former president Rodrigo Duterte and then his successor, Mr Marcos, on the grounds that the government could not afford them. AFP
