Comelec eyes Taguig as election hot spot

With just a few days left before May 13, political tensions are still running high in Taguig City with the two mayoral candidates announcing their intention to file charges against each other.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec), meanwhile, said that it was considering declaring the city an area of immediate concern.

According to Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes, the move was requested by mayoral candidate Rica Tiñga.

Brillantes said he would discuss the matter with Philippine National Police chief Director General Alan Purisima.

He explained that they would have to augment the police force in the city should the poll body grant Tiñga’s request.

Brillantes added that there was also a request to have the chief of police in the area replaced. “We are also seriously considering this,” he said.

According to Tiñga, her lawyers were preparing to file a case for grave coercion, grave threats, serious physical injuries, attempted homicide and robbery against her rival, Mayor Lani Cayetano and several Public Order and Safety Office (POSO) personnel led by Kim Pautin, in connection with a scuffle that broke out between their followers outside the Taguig City Hall on Saturday.

As a result, 12 of her supporters and two POSO personnel were hurt, three of them ending up with serious head wounds.

Tiñga, who is running under the Kilusang Diwa ng Taguig (KDT) party, added that her group would also file a case in the Comelec and ask that the city be placed under the poll body’s control.

“The Cayetanos believe they are above the law in Taguig…. It’s about time the Comelec steps in,” she said in a statement.

She added: “We are appealing to President Aquino to request Cayetano and her camp to end the violence in Taguig.”

Her request, however, was contradicted by Cayetano, wife of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano. The couple are both running for reelection.

According to the mayor, the poll body only places a city under its control “when there’s violence and not when someone just wants to create a scene.”

Earlier, Cayetano’s camp accused her rival of being desperate. In a television interview, she said that before the brawl, Tiñga and her supporters were barred from entering city hall because of an election rule that prohibits candidates from campaigning in government offices.

“There would have been no violence if my rival was only responsible,” she pointed out, adding that she would file charges against Tiñga and her slate.

Tiñga, a former councilor, is the sister of Taguig Rep. Freddie Tiñga and daughter of former Associate Justice Dante Tiñga who ran against Cayetano in May 2010. After he lost, the elder Tiñga filed a poll protest against Cayetano, accusing her of engaging in electoral fraud.

Meanwhile, the head of the Southern Police District (SPD) has ordered Taguig police officials to determine the persons responsible for Saturday’s incident and immediately file charges against them.

“They should be charged so they would learn their lesson,” SPD director Chief Supt. Jose Erwin Villacorte said over the phone.

According to him, the police should not let the incident pass without appropriate charges being filed to prevent similar cases in the future.

Tiñga and her supporters claimed they were peacefully conducting a house-to-house campaign on Saturday in Barangay (village) Tuktukan near the city hall when POSO members whose faces were covered attacked them.

However, POSO personnel told Senior Supt. Art Asis, city police chief, that it was Tiñga’s supporters who instigated the violence and they merely acted in self-defense. They said it all started when Tiñga’s supporters threw stones at them and hit one of them with placards.