CRIME SCENE | Police cordon off a roadside at the town plaza of Midsayap, Cotabato, following the shooting on Aug. 29 of an aspiring village chief in the Bangsamoro region. (Photo from the Midsayap Municipal Police Station)
MANILA, Philipines — The filing of candidacies for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections was marred by election-related violence ahead of the polls on Oct. 30.
But the submission of certificates of candidacy (COCs) scheduled this week has also become an unprecedented “blockbuster,” or so the chief of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has regarded the turnout so far, as nearly 300,000 aspiring candidates flocked to different Comelec sites nationwide.
Still, violence disrupted this early stage of the barangay and SK polls—with a reelectionist barangay captain in Albay province peppered with bullets by two gunmen on Monday afternoon, and a candidate for barangay captain in Cotabato province killed the same way also by a pair of assailants on Tuesday noon.
Series of killings
Alex Repato, incumbent chair of Barangay San Jose in Libon, Albay, filed his certificate of candidacy (COC) around 11 a.m. on Monday. About six hours later, before dusk, he was shot and killed outside his house by two still unidentified gunmen.
Five days before Repato’s murder, Councilor Reliosa Mata and her husband, Alfredo, were both shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Barangay Nogpo, also in Libon.
Earlier on May 9, village chief Oscar Maronilla of Libon’s Barangay San Pascual was ambushed while on a motorcycle.
Albay Rep. Fernando Cabredo, in a statement, appealed to President Marcos to intervene “in the senseless and escalating killings in Libon.”
In an interview with the Inquirer, Cabredo said: “The killings of village officials are very disturbing, and this would surely affect the people, particularly the socioeconomic activity in the town.”
In separate statements on Tuesday, Albay provincial police director Col. Fernando Cunanan Jr. appealed to residents and concerned citizens to help law enforcers solve the cases of violence against local officials in Libon, while Bicol regional police director Brig. Gen. Westrimundo Obinque said maintaining peace and order was the top police concern in the region during the October elections.
In Cotabato, Haron Dimalanis was having lunch with several companions at the plaza fronting the Midsayap municipal hall, when two men began shooting in their direction before they fled on a motorcycle.
Dimalanis, 40, and another companion were taken to a hospital where he died.
He was a candidate for village chief in Malingao, considered an election “hot spot” in the province, according to Midsayap Mayor Rolly Sacdalan.
The mayor has ordered tighter security in the town, where Malingao and 12 other villages form part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
‘Overwhelmed’
In Manila, Comelec Chair George Garcia said the commission was “overwhelmed” with the turnout in the filing of candidacies.
The number of candidates who lined up on Tuesday morning alone, he noted, were “almost three days’ worth of COCs.”
A total of 672,432 barangay and SK posts are up for grabs in the coming polls.
All 42,027 barangays in the country will each have one village chief or barangay captain (“punong barangay”), one SK chair, seven Sangguniang Barangay members (“kagawad”) and seven SK members.
The period for filing of COCs ends on Sept. 2.