By YVONNE T. CHUA
ENVELOPES come and go at the Social Action Center of the Diocese of Masbate. But the one awaiting Fr. Leo Casas, the center’s director, at his office the night of March 9 was different.
At first, Casas thought it held a donation belatedly being made to Walk for Hope, Walk for My Home, a multisectoral march the diocese had spearheaded earlier in the day to demand peaceful elections in this province in Bicol in May.
He was wrong. The envelope yielded a bullet: an M-16 Armalite bullet.
Casas refuses to speculate who sent him the bullet, but the package came after he received a string of text messages threatening and ordering him to stop peace initiatives for the May 10 elections.
Since the 1960s, Masbate has been a political tinderbox, characterized by violence perpetrated by warring political clans and abetted by a “culture of silence and culture of fear” among residents.
Unlike Maguindanao, where election-related violence is said to be “wholesale,” it is “retail” in Masbate. “Long before the electons, the process of elimination starts,” Casas says.
Political rivals take out each other, including their supporters, and, Casas laments, “people find it okay.”
This time, though, the Masbateños, particularly the Church and civil society, refuse to take the violence sitting down. “Tama na ang patayan. Wala na ang tutulong sa Masbate kundi hindi ang mga Masbatenos (Enough of the killings. No one is going to help Masbate except the Masbatenos),” says the SAC director.
On Feb. 10, a multisectoral group that included the Philippine National Police held a peace forum to which it invited candidates in this year’s elections. On March 9, Masbatenos marched for peace.
But the road to holding peaceful elections in the province this May is obviously not easy.
The province has recorded nine incidents of poll-related violence since the election period started on Jan. 10, accounting for most of the 39 incidents reported nationwide during the period.
Vote Peace, a project of the civil society-led Consortium on Electoral Reforms that is monitoring electoral violence, has asked the Commission on Elections to place Masbate under its control, citing the “prominent” involvement of partisan armed groups and the New People’s Army in the incidents.
Violence is expected to escalate as rival clans, including the Khos, Llanetes and the Espinosas, again join the triennial face-off and a number of them are cool to or outrightly resist peace initiatives and the redeployment of police authorities in the province.
In the gubernatorial race, Elisa Kho is running under the banner of Lakas-Kampi-CMD, Rizalina Seachon Llanete under the Nationalist People’s Coalition, and Judith Espinosa as independent.
Casas says one candidate refused to shake hands with the other bets at the February forum, saying it would be just for show if she did. A gubernatorial candidate snubbed the March 9 peace activity “to the extent of discouraging one of the primary moves for peaceful election in the province,” according to Vote Peace.
The position of Comelec’s provincial administrator in Masbate is also vacant, and the multisectoral group has asked to be part of the selection process in the hope of easing the political tension in the province.
Masbate’s civil society is, however, grateful to the PNP for supporting its peace efforts. The PNP has deployed 80 special forces and confiscated firearms from private armed groups since January; it even joined the multisectoral peace march last March.
“The PNP is doing a good job,” acknowledges Casas.