By LUZ RIMBAN
A MULTISECTORAL election watchdog group has warned that the campaign for local positions, which starts today, could signal heightened violence because, it said, the automated election system is expected to limit opportunities for politicians to cheat.
“Because the system is new and limits human intervention, some candidates will have more difficulty cheating,” said Ramon Casiple, chairperson of the Consortium for Electoral Reform (CER) which is monitoring incidents of election-related violence through its project called Vote for Peace 2010 or Vote Peace.
“Kung mahirapan mandaya, baka patayin na lang (If they couldn’t cheat, they might just kill), ” said Casiple, voicing the fear of groups watching the elections, including the Commission on Elections, that violence could ensue as cheating becomes more difficult to carry out.
Vote Peace has recorded 41 people killed and 11 wounded in 39 incidents of election-related violence since the election period started on Jan. 10.
The CER said the figures “compare well” with those recorded during the same election period of 2007 and attributed this to public outrage over the Nov. 23 massacre in Maguindanao.
But at least nine of the 39 incidents happened in Masbate alone. Casiple said the consortium will ask that Masbate be put under Comelec control in addition to Maguindanao.
Fr. Leo Casas, director of the Diocese of Masbate Social Action Foundation Inc., lamented the culture of silence and fear that he said has bred violence in the province. Since the 1960s, warring political clans have resorted to killings, resulting in Masbate being one of the most dangerous hotspots in the country.
“The Church has decided we can’t take this sitting down,” said Casas, who has led efforts to organize civil society against election-related violence in Masbate.
Casiple said the Maguindanao massacre, in which 57 people, 30 of them journalists, were shot dead in an open field in broad daylight on Nov. 23, allegedly on orders of Andal Ampatuan Jr., mayor of Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao, and his father, Andal Sr., has brought down incidents of election-related violence, even in the traditional hotspots.
“People reacted. So did institutions like the media, the Church, even the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police. They were shocked by the gravity of that incident,” Casiple said.
The outrage over the killing and over the problem of warlordism in the country has driven private armies to lie low.
But Casiple said the government has been unable to dismantle the 112 partisan armed groups or private armies being maintained by politicians. Most of these armed groups are based in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, he said.
Even the Ampatuan clan, despite facing a slew of cases for the Maguindanao massacre and despite military action against them, have not been deterred or discouraged.
The clan, which is fielding 68 of its members to various local positions, has reportedly been flexing its political muscle. Patriarch Andal Sr. reportedly summoned recently Maguindanao mayors from his cell inside a military camp in Davao City. More than mayors reportedly heeded the summons.
“There is news that the Ampatuan clan is regrouping despite the state of emergency,” Casiple said.
The Maguindanao massacre is the worst case of election-related violence to happen in the country.
In addition to the provinces tagged as traditional election hotspots like Abra, Nueva Ecija, Samar, Lanao del Norte and provinces the ARMM, the consortium included Davao City; Monkayo, Compostela Valley; Sorsogon; Quezon; Mindoro Oriental and Occidental; Negros Oriental, Sarangani, and Batangas as “areas to watch out” because of the growing intensity of political rivalry in these places.
Casiple cited the rivalry between Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and Speaker Prospero Nograles in Davao City, former police Senior Supt. Cesar Mancao and Rep. Manuel “Waykurat” Zamora in Monkayo, boxing champ Manny Pacquiao and the Chiongbian family in Sarangani, and former Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and the Levistes in Batangas.
“The intense political rivalries among contending parties is complicated by the aggressive operations of the New People’s Army guerrillas against the police and military for collecting PTCs (permit-to-campaign fees)” in Sorsogon, Quezon, the Mindoro provinces and Negros Oriental, he said.
The consortium defines election-related violence as “any random or organized act that cause(s) psychological and/or physical harm or death to any person or group of people and/or that may determine, delay or otherwise influence the electoral process.”
Among the acts constituting electoral violence are actual threats, physical assaults, destruction of property, violent disruption of political activity, shooting, assassination, murder and arson.
Data gathered from Vote Peace Response Teams as well as from media and police reports showed that the incidents of election-related violence have increased as the May polls draw near.
Data showed 10 incidents in January, 14 in February and 15 from March 1 to 25. Ten were killed in January, 11 in February and 20 in March. Twelve of the fatalities were candidates, six were political leaders, and 11 were soldiers.
“The acts of violence are planned with an identified target,” the Vote Peace report said, with the element of premeditation characterizing election-related violence.
Fears of heightened electoral violence have driven candidates, the police, the military, the Church and civil society to undertake peace initiatives. So far, Vote Peace has monitored the signing of 27 peace covenants in 24 areas initiated either by civil society, the Armed Forces or the PNP.
The data showed that only in 10 cases were the covenants signed by multi-stakeholder groups, while others were initiated by mainly by the military or the police through the Joint Security Coordinating Committees.
Casiple urged the AFP and the PNP to involve civil society in the initiating covenants for peace, saying transparency was crucial in such activities. He noted that such covenants, if kept hidden, may actually be arrangements for fraud and cheating.
Casiple added that it is no secret that the PNP and AFP units have themselves been involved in fraud and cheating, as exposed in the “Hello, Garci” scandal in 2005.