1 killed, 23 hurt in Lanao del Sur on election day

MARAWI CITY, Philippines – A person was killed while 23 others were injured in violence committed during Election Day in Lanao del Sur.  Local election monitors said that when compared to the extent of election violence in the past elections, Monday’s balloting in the province could be considered tame.

However, questions still remain on whether its results, expectedly out by Tuesday or Wednesday courtesy of an automated count system, truly reflect the raw sentiment of the electorate.

The lone casualty was identified as Imo Montaner. He was going home around 2 p.m. after voting in Barangay Mable of Malabang town when he was sprayed with bullets a few blocks from the polling center.

Local police and field monitors of the poll watchdog group Citizens Coalition for Electoral Reforms in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (C-CARE) said the killing was related to an ongoing rido (revenge attacks by warring clans) and not to the political exercise.

In Lanao del Sur, where rido is prevalent, the elections are also an opportunity for retribution by involved parties especially if they belong to the same clustered precinct.

Most of the violence was perpetrated in the course of attempts to disrupt voting although these never achieved the desired result.

Despite cases of attacks, and the temporary setback these created in the poll conduct, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) did not declare any balloting failure. Instead, it decreed that polling continued as soon as government security forces restored order in the voting centers.

Since the province was declared an election hotspot, more soldiers and police were deployed in the clustered precincts.

The most serious attempt to disrupt the polls was in Marawi.

Around 2:30 p.m., a hand grenade was lobbed at the Cabingan Elementary School in Marawi City, wounding five persons, one of which was Fahad Salic Jr., Col. Glenn Macasero, commanding officer of the Philippine Army’s 103rd Brigade, said.

Salic, 21, is son of reelectionist mayor Fahad Sr. Three other Salic family members were among those injured and an elderly woman. All were rushed to the Amai Pakpak Public Hospital.

In all, the hospital is taking care of 12 patients who were wounded in instances of election-related violence in various areas of the province, said the multi-sectoral Provincial Election Monitoring and Action Center (PEMAC).

Two other serious incidents intended to disrupt the polls were in Buadipuso-Buntong and Saguiran towns where police and soldiers quelled attempts to destroy the precinct-count optical scan (PCOS) machines.

Around 9 a.m. in Bago Ingud Elementary School, several men threw punches against each other inside one of the five precincts hosted there. Commotion ensued.

As chaos outside the precinct set in, police and Army personnel noticed a person heading straight to the PCOS machine attempting to batter it. The lawmen restrained him before he could damage the machine.

Earlier, at around 8:20 a.m., supporters of opposing camps engaged in fist-fights just outside the Ragondingan Elementary School that hosts six clustered precincts of Buadipuso-Buntong.

Amid the commotion, witnesses saw several persons carrying bottles containing gasoline rushing towards the rooms designated as polling stations. The gasoline eventually spilled as the bottles were thrown to the ground in the scuffle that injured at least 10 people, said the Army.

But Army soldiers securing the area rushed in and prevented those carrying gasoline from entering.

Sources among poll monitors and poll watchers of political camps said the attempt to burn the PCOS machines deployed in the village could have been prompted by rumors that the balloting there was “home-worked.”

As of 11 a.m., there was no longer observable voting activity in the precincts. The monitors said they were told by poll officials they were running out of supply of marking pens and ink.

Also, poll monitors said they were barred from entering the balloting area. Similar practices were discovered in Maguing, raising suspicions there could be ‘miracles’ happening inside the precincts.

In several precincts of Pikong town, poll monitors reported seeing pre-shaded ballots.

In Barangay Lomidong of Marawi, monitors reported that precinct officials declared at 10 a.m. they were already out of ballots, in what turned out to be a ploy to shoo the voters away. By 1 p.m., the precinct was closed for voting.

But the C-CARe monitors said that in this precinct, only several individuals were doing the voting.

Flying voters were observed in Maguing and Kapai.

In seven towns and Marawi city, at least 13 PCOS machines conked out.