ELECTION hopefuls like mayoral candidate Kerwin Espinosa have to ask themselves whether the job is worth taking a bullet.
The country’s elections commission, Comelec, recorded 46 acts of political violence between Jan 12 and April 11, including the shooting of Espinosa.
At a rally this month, someone from the crowd fired a bullet that went through his chest and exited his arm, leaving him bleeding but alive.
Others have been less lucky.
A city council hopeful, a polling officer and a village chief were among those killed in similar attacks in the run-up to mid-term elections on May 12.
Comelec said “fewer than 20” candidates have been killed so far this campaign season, which it notes is a drop.
“This is much lower, very low compared to the past,” said commission spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco, citing about 100 deaths in the last general election.
The immense influence of the posts is seen as something worth killing for.
Holding municipal office means control over jobs, police departments and disbursements of national tax funds, said Danilo Reyes, an associate professor at the University of the Philippines’ political science department.
“Local chief executives have discretion when it comes to how to allocate the funding, which projects, priorities,” he said.
The rule of law that becomes weaker the farther one gets from Manila also means that regional powerbrokers can act with effective impunity, said Cleve Arguelles, CEO of Manila-based WR Numero Research.
“Local political elites have their own kingdoms, armed groups and... patronage networks,” he said, noting violence is typically highest in the archipelago nation’s far north and south.
“The stakes are usually high in a local area where only one family is dominant or where there is involvement of private armed groups,” Arguelles said.
“If you lose control of... city hall, you don’t just lose popular support. You actually lose both economic and political power.”
In the absence of strong institutions to mediate disagreements, Reyes said, “confrontational violence” becomes the go-to.
Espinosa was waiting for his turn to speak at a campaign stop in central Leyte province on April 10, when a shooter emerged from the crowd and fired from about 50m away, according to police.
Police Brigadier-General Jean Fajardo told reporters this week that seven police officers were “being investigated” as suspects.
Convictions, however, are hard to come by.
While Laudiangco insisted recent election-related shootings were all making their way through regional court systems, he could provide no numbers.
Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project shows that in 79% of violent acts against local government members between 2018 and 2022 the perpetrators were never identified.
“The only way you can ensure national leaders win positions is for local allies to deliver votes,” he said.
“There are convictions but very rarely, and it depends on the potential political fallout on the national leaders as well as the local leaders.”
Three days after Espinosa’s shooting, a district board candidate and his driver were rushed to hospital after someone opened fire on them in the autonomous area of Mindanao. — AFP
