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.
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
‘SHORTSIGHTED’: Using aid as leverage is punitive, would not be regarded well among Pacific Island nations and would further open the door for China, an academic said New Zealand has suspended millions of dollars in budget funding to the Cook Islands, it said yesterday, as the relationship between the two constitutionally linked countries continues to deteriorate amid the island group’s deepening ties with China. A spokesperson for New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters said in a statement that New Zealand early this month decided to suspend payment of NZ$18.2 million (US$11 million) in core sector support funding for this year and next year as it “relies on a high trust bilateral relationship.” New Zealand and Australia have become increasingly cautious about China’s growing presence in the Pacific
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS