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By NORODIN MANALAO Citizens Coalition for ARMM Electoral Reforms COTABATO CITY.— Two unidentified persons killed a school principal on a busy street in this city Thursday morning. The incident happened at around 9 a.m. and was witnessed by sidewalk vendors and bystanders along the said street in Cotabato City.

BY ELLEN TORDESILLAS DESPITE a 75 percent turnout of voters and  80 percent of results known within 48 hours, the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)  and Halalang Marangal cautioned the public against claims of “success’ by the Commission on Elections. CenPEG’s director for policy studies, Bobby Tuazon, said the  Comelec  should  address  the

BY ELLEN TORDESILLAS A civil society group that had warned of failure of election  with the implementation of an untested nationwide automated elections said they they were  glad to have been proven wrong. The Concerned Citizens Movement, the group that went to the Supreme Court to stop  full automation of the May 10, 2010 elections

By VIOLETA M. GLORIA Mindanews ILIGAN CITY. — It’s all Dimaporos – mother, son and daughter – taking the highest elective posts in Lanao del Norte. Reelected governor is Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo, whose mother and former governor, Imelda Q. Dimaporo has been elected representative of Lanao del Norte’s first district. Khalid’s sister Fatimah Aliah will represent

THE Social Weather Stations is seeking P1 million in moral damages from defeated presidential candidate Sen. Richard Gordon for “debasing” its reputation at home and abroad. The research organization sought the compulsory counterclaim when it answered Gordon’s petition filed earlier before a Quezon City regional trial court to stop the publication of pre-election surveys of

By JONALYN FORTUNO and PAULINE DYCOCO WHILE Monday’s polls have been deemed successful, an election watchdog said the automation failed in at least one area: the transmission of votes. “While the counting is speedy, the transmission is not,” said Roan Libarios of Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) at a press conference held in Manila

By JULES L. BENITEZ and AL-KAMAR A. JIDIN Mindanews JOLO, Sulu.—With only two incidents of armed harassment and zero incidents of armed fighting, election day was generally peaceful in the province of Sulu, officials said. The two cases of armed harassment happened in the towns of Panglima Estino and Lugus on election day but no

COMMISSION on Elections Commissioners Rene Sarmiento and Gregorio Larrazabal on Tuesday night joined activists Fr. Robert Reyes and Ernesto Ordoñez in praying for people’s vigilance of government. Sarmiento and Larrazabal went to the tent that Alyansa Agrikultura, Kubol Pag-asa and Aksyon para sa Kapayapaan put up outside the gate of the Philippine International Convention Center,

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS SEN. Alan Cayetano’s wife Lani, representative of Taguig-Pateros (1st district), was finally proclaimed as Taguig mayor at about 5 p.m. today.  But the proclamation at City Hall was marred by a tear gas incident. “We were greeting everyone after Lani’s proclamation and talking about Lani’s desire for peaceful reconciliation, then suddenly we

By Citizen Journalists-Pampanga SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga. — Traditional politics and trash. Both dominated this year’s  local elections in Pampanga as Kapampangan voters trooped to their polling places last Monday amid an avalanche of campaign materials. In the end, they settled for familiar names in the country’s first automated elections.

INTERNATIONAL observers who monitored the May 10 automated polls documented many cases of election irregularities in different parts of Maguindanao, including what they described as the “worst case of cheating” in Buldon town. The foreign observers from the Compact for Peaceful and Democratic Elections (COMPACT) reported massive vote buying and multiple voting in the polling

BY ELLEN TORDESILLAS THE Commission on Election  Tuesday night issued a resolution that would speed up the proclamation process. The resolution read by Comelec  Chairman Jose Melo states: “The regional directors are authorized to approve requests of the board of canvassers in their respective regions to  lower the the canvassing threshold to enable the board