By VERA Files
FEWER incidents of election violence this year compared to previous years have prompted the Philippine National Police to declare the May 2013 election more peaceful, but the casualty count this year actually does not differ much from the 2010 national and local elections.
The PNP reported 81 incidents that ranged from shootings, ambushes, explosions and strafing in the four-month period from January 13 to May 13. Sixty-seven of those were shooting incidents.
A total of 51 persons were killed and 65 were wounded while 33 went missing from those incidents. More than half of those killed were local politicians.