The Philippines military went on alert yesterday as voters prepared for national polls today following a blood-soaked campaign season that saw more than 110 people killed.
Thousands of soldiers joined police already guarding polling facilities to "stop election violence and move forcefully against those using threats and intimidation for partisan ends," a presidential statement said.
President Gloria Arroyo is hoping to keep a majority in the House of Representatives as well as most of the 12 seats being contested in the 24-member Senate to ensure a smooth last three years of her rule.
PHOTO: AFP
Some 45 million voters will elect parliamentarians to the 275-seat House of Representatives as well as governors, mayors and provincial and municipal or city councils throughout the nation.
Arroyo expressed confidence yesterday that her allies would sweep congressional and local elections, although opinion polls point to the opposition tightening control of the Senate.
About 87,000 candidates contesting nearly 18,000 positions spent the last day in motorcades, rallies, prayers and last-minute efforts to win votes across the country, known for its raucous campaigning and tall promises.
"The administration is looking forward to gaining a new majority in the Senate courtesy of a decisive Team Unity victory," Arroyo's political adviser, Gabriel Claudio, said in a statement yesterday.
Team Unity is the name given to the administration's slate of 12 candidates for the Senate.
About 1,000 police and soldiers are guarding the northern province of Abra, where a policeman was killed by suspected guns for hire in the town of Danglas late on Saturday to add to months of deadly political violence that claimed the life of Abra Legislator Luis Bersamin in December.
"It is heating up. This is the end game between now and tomorrow at election time," said Senior Superintendent Villamor Bumanglag, chief of a police task force that will field seven officers for every precinct on election day.
"There have been a lot of reports of armed groups moving in remote areas and we are checking on them," he said.
While the presidency is not at stake, analysts said the result would have a large bearing on efforts by the opposition to unseat Arroyo over allegations she cheated to win the May 2004 ballot. She denies the allegations.
Pro-Arroyo parties are expected to keep a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives, which would ensure that no further impeachment complaints against her would succeed.
The election has been under intense foreign scrutiny amid a wave of murders of hundreds of supporters of fringe leftist parties since Arroyo came to power in 2001, some of which the military says are fronts for communist guerrillas.
Police put the official death toll from the three-month campaign period at 113 throughout the country, where vote-buying and electoral violence are commonplace.
Police and military units were deployed in several districts hit by bloodshed in the run-up to the vote, and were also drafted in to transport ballot boxes and escort foreign observers to far-flung areas.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in