Philippines votes in the shadow of gunmen
By Simon Roughneen
MANILA - The ever-present shadow of violence and intimidation hangs over the 50
million voters going to the polls at the Philippines' presidential, legislative
elections and local elections on Monday. The prospect of a fully free and fair
election is also in question, with well-documented worries over a new partially
automated voting and counting system and vote-buying seemingly omnipresent -
boxing champion Manny Pacquiao last week offered 500,000 pesos (US$10,980) to a
village in Mindanao if it backed his campaign for a congress seat.
The number of political killings has surged during the electoral campaign, with
local clans and politicians eliminating their
electoral rivals. The single worse incident came last November, when an
unprecedented 57 civilians were murdered in Maguindanao in the restive southern
Philippines.
By April 14, the latest date for which figures are available, 38 election
candidates had been killed during the January to mid-April campaign period,
according to Felix Vargas, spokesman for the government's task force on elected
government officials. The figure does not include campaign workers and
candidates' assistants who were killed.
Professor Rommel C Banlaoi, the director of the Philippine Institute for Peace,
Violence and Terrorism Research (PIPVTR), told Asia Times Online that "cases of
election related killings from the use of illegally armed groups have been
recorded and to date numbers more than 100".
The Maguindanao atrocity made international headlines due to its grisly
details, but also because it was the largest recorded mass killing of
journalists in a single incident. The massacre was carried out to deter an
opposition clan, the Mangudadatu family, from running in the elections against
the government-backed Ampatuan clan. This case and less well-known clashes in
the southern Philippines and elsewhere illustrate how elections raise the
stakes for volatile local bigwig rivalries. With patronage links to the center
at stake, the prospect of elections intensifies rido, the term for
honor-driven violence and vengeful clan feuding in the region.
The fallout from the Maguindanao case continues, highlighting links between
political violence and the powers that be. Justice Secretary Alberto Agra
sparked a massive public outcry when he cleared Zaldy and Akmad Ampatuan of
involvement in the massacre. In a statement last Wednesday, he reversed his
decision.
"I am now convinced that there is probable cause in so far as Zaldy Ampatuan
and Akmad Ampatuan are concerned," he said after officials at his department
confronted him with fresh evidence. The about-turn might be linked to the
elections, with the unpopular outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
possibly seeking to distance her administration from the Ampatuans as she
prepares for an expected career in congress.
After the massacre, the Ampatuans were booted out of Arroyo's Lakas-Campi
party, whose former presidential candidate, Gilberto "Gibo" Teodoro, is
languishing with only 9% of popular support according to latest opinion
surveys. That figure puts him well behind third-placed Manuel "Manny" Villar
(19%), former president Joseph "Erap" Estrada on 20%, and clear leader Benigno
"Noynoy" Aquino III on 42%.
Elections in the Philippines have a history of unpredictability, and some
candidates say they will take to the streets if there are question marks over
the new computerized voting process.
While there may be immediate post-election violence in the longer term it seems
unlikely that the election will reverse the proliferation of private armed
militias. The number of private armies jumped from 68 in December to 117 in
February, according to Dante Jimenez, a member of the Zenarosa Commission,
which was established by Arroyo a month after the Maguindanao incident to
address the issue of private armed groups.
Jessica Evans, a Human Rights Watch fellow based in Manila, said Villar has
ruled out curbing these groups if he is elected, citing the need to improve
social spending in one of Asia's most unequal, poverty-stricken countries. She
said Aquino has been non-committal on the issue, despite the apparent animus
between him and incumbent Arroyo, who has clear links to the Ampatuans and
other clans.
Since it was established, the Zenarosa commission has had mixed appraisals.
"The commission is only a fact-finding commission. Its mandate to dismantle
private armies is only recommendatory and it does not have operational powers.
Dismantling private armies rests largely on the capabilities of the police and
the military to disarm them," said Banlaoi.
The second possibility seems unlikely, given reportedly strong links between
the police and army and the private militias.
Money plays a part in sustaining the system. Some of the militias are in the
pay of the country's dominant 250 or so political dynasties - a figure given by
the Manila-based Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CENPEG). These
clans enjoy almost total control over their constituencies and many have access
to a steady flow of funds from Manila. Irrespective of who wins, these
well-entrenched dynasties are likely to dominate the Philippines' political
landscape. CENPEG director Bobby Tauzon told ATol that "those expected to win
come mostly from old and emerging political dynasties at the national and local
levels".
The state has been downplaying the realities of political or electoral
violence. A police report issued in the days leading up to Monday's vote noted
a reduced level of electoral violence compared with recent elections, omitting
the Maguindanao incident which occurred before the official campaign period.
Thirty-eight candidates killed seems little cause for celebration, but the
deaths did little to dampen the carnival-like rallies and presence of dancing
girls, a staple in the country's celebrity-oriented political campaigns.
Blurred lines In the Philippines, militias are either military controlled Citizen Armed
Forces Geographical Units (CAGFU), police-controlled Civilian Volunteers
Organizations (CVO), or private armies recruited and maintained by businessmen
and politicians. Better-known ideologically driven rebel groups such as the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the communist New People's Army (NPA)
are not classed as militias, though their existence is often used as a
justification for private armies.
For example, Tauzon cites the now-notorious example of how the Ampatuans were
armed and funded partly as a bulwark against the MILF in the south. The picture
is blurred, however, as MILF or NPA personnel have been hired by some local
politicians as "bodyguards", according to Banlaoi.
Links between the private militias and state security forces raise questions
about the veracity of the term "private armed groups", since many are linked to
the police or the military and often feature security forces doubling up as
guns for hire. Many acquire weapons from the police and/or army, or are
better-armed than their official counterparts.
It all adds to a culture of impunity and violence that observers say is
undermining democracy in the Philippines. Arroyo, the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) and government-backed paramilitaries have been directly
linked to a wave of political killings across the Philippines throughout the
past decade. "Forced disappearances and illegal detentions remain all too
common, as does the bringing of trumped up charges against Filipino activists
and human-rights abuse victims," the UN Human Rights Council wrote in 2009.
Since Arroyo took office in 2001, over 1,000 political murders have taken place
nationwide, few of the cases ever made it to court.
Many of the victims were killed due to perceived links - often tenuous at best
- with the NPA, which is also accused of political violence. While the AFP and
MILF signed an electoral peace pact back in February - the MILF refuses to
recognize the constitution and is boycotting the elections - the NPA has said
it will attack AFP troops at polling stations. On Sunday, it was reported on
Philippine TV news that the NPA destroyed five vote-counting machines in the
north of Luzon.
Undaunted, millions of Filipinos will line up today in the blazing heat to cast
their votes, which will then be run through the contentious computerized
scanning machines. Without polling booths, voters are susceptible to
intimidation in the classroom-setting of most polling stations, according to
Somsri Hannanuntasuk, who is in Manila as an election observer with the Asian
Network for Free Elections (ANFREL). "There is no privacy, and it is possible
to see how people are voting," she told ATol on the eve of voting.
The nullification of the secret ballot has made voters more vulnerable to the
hired guns likely to be guarding precincts in many remote areas, according to
Ava Avila, a researcher at the International Center for Political Violence and
Terrorism Research in Singapore. "There is a possibility that some will harass
voters not supporting their candidates," she said. And in an already volatile
atmosphere, rural and remote areas might see worse than harassment. Five more
people were shot dead on Sunday in attacks involving gunmen loyal to local
candidates in the southern Mindanao region.
Simon Roughneen is a journalist currently covering southeast Asia. His
website is www.simonroughneen.com.
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