With dozens of bodies littering the campaign trail, millions of Filipinos vote today in crucial legislative elections seen as a test of the legitimacy of President Gloria Arroyo's government.
An hour before campaigning officially ended at midnight on Saturday, communist rebels shot dead an administration congressman and a companion while three others were killed in a grenade attack, pushing the campaign violence death toll to 58.
Congressman Marcial Punzalan and a cousin had just stepped out of a car during a rally in Tiaong, south of Manila, when six assassins gunned them down, police said.
On southern Mindanao Island, an unidentified attacker tossed a grenade at the headquarters of a candidate for mayor, killing three people and wounding 17.
The spate of killings in a country where political rivalries approach tribal fierceness has prompted the armed forces and the police to declare a nationwide alert.
"Your police and the armed forces are on maximum vigilance," national police chief General Leandro Mendoza said.
Arroyo said on Saturday she had received intelligence reports that a nine-man liquidation squad had also targeted her family for assassination to coincide with the May Day attack on the presidential palace by thousands of supporters of detained former leader Joseph Estrada.
She said her son, Mikey, was to be kidnapped and killed by the group as its "prime target."
Arroyo did not say if the supposed plot had been neutralized.
At stake in the polls are 13 of 24 Senate seats, all 262 seats in the House of Representatives and more than 17,000 local posts from provincial governors to town mayors and councilors.
Arroyo, swept to the presidency by a military-backed "people power" revolt in January which ended Estrada's 31-month rule, has high stakes in the elections.
She needs not only to score clear-cut victories in the Senate and Lower House to control Congress and ensure passage of key bills, but also to ensure that the voting is honest and peaceful.
"Definitely, a big win for her would strengthen her position. This is the first test of her muscle as president," political analyst Nelson Navarro said.
"If she doesn't score big, it will prolong the political stalemate .... The opposition can paralyze, veto, stalemate her all the way to 2004," Navarro said, referring to the next presidential election. "That's a very dangerous situation because it opens the room for perhaps another extra-legal challenge to her presidency."
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