At least four people were yesterday killed in the southern Philippines 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 because they are used by political parties to cultivate grassroots networks and build a support base for local and general elections.
Photo: AFP
More than 300,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed to secure polling stations in more than 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 Rosemarie Garcia in the neighborhood 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.
Philippine Commission on Elections Chairman George Garcia said that voting had been “generally peaceful,” except for several incidents on the southern island of Mindanao.
Two people were killed and five were wounded outside a polling station in Maguindanao del Norte province, police said.
The shootout happened during a confrontation between supporters of rival candidates for village captain, said Lieutenant-Colonel Esmail Madin, the 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 a road by people backing her rival in Lanao del Norte province, the army said.
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 the run-up to yesterday’s vote, there were 30 confirmed incidents of election-related violence, compared with 35 in 2018, the Philippine National Police said 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 that eight people were killed and seven injured in poll-related violence between Aug. 28 and Wednesday last week.
More than 67 million people were registered to vote in the elections, which Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday described as “very important” for higher-level politicians.
“What happens here in the barangay [village] ... are going to have an effect on the results of the mid-term elections and subsequently at the national elections,” 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,” he said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
‘DISCRIMINATION’: The US Office of Personnel Management ordered that public DEI-focused Web pages be taken down, while training and contracts were canceled US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off. The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and called to restore “merit-based” hiring. The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by former US president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It is using one of the
RSS