By Carlos H. Conde
MANILA — Election violence erupted again in the Philippines on Thursday as a grenade attack killed two people and injured a dozen during a meeting of local candidates.
Police officials said an unidentified man lobbed a grenade into the meeting in Datu Odin Sinsuat, a town in Maguindanao, the southern province where 57 people were massacred in November in the worst election-related violence in the country’s history.
Violence caused by political bosses — fueled by a proliferation of illegal weapons — has repeatedly plagued elections in the Philippines. And before the attack on Thursday, according to police statistics, 33 people had been killed this year in attacks linked to the upcoming elections. More than 2,000 have been arrested for violations of a gun ban.
In the attack on Thursday, the apparent targets were Montasir Sabal, who is running for mayor of Talitay, and his brother, Abdulwahad, a candidate for deputy mayor. Both are in the Liberal Party, which is headed by Benigno S. Aquino III, who earlier expressed concerns about possible violence against his supporters.
“The two brothers are lucky because people were around them,” a witness told The Mindanao Examiner, a local newspaper. “They were talking to their supporters when the attack occurred”.
The attack on the Sabal brothers was just the latest in a week of violence.
On Tuesday, in the southern province of Zamboanga Sibugay, gunmen fired at a group of local candidates, wounding one person, and three other candidates were wounded by gunfire when their convoy was ambushed in a separate incident, local news agencies reported. A day earlier, a grenade blast at a campaign rally in Zamboanga Sibugay wounded four people, three of them children.
On Wednesday, a radio reporter in Misamis Occidental Province, also in the south, was shot and killed on his way to work. The motive for the murder was not immediately clear, although the police said they have not ruled out the elections as a possible cause. Radio commentators in the Philippines often take partisan positions during elections, making them targets of attacks by political rivals.
The United States and Canada cautioned their citizens earlier this week from unnecessary travel in the Philippines, particularly in the south, as they warned of possible violence stemming from insurgencies as well as election-related tensions.
Police officials and election monitors have long considered Maguindanao as the most dangerous province in the Philippines during elections. Accusations of cheating and vote fraud have been widely reported in the province, which for years was controlled by the Ampatuan political dynasty. Some of the Ampatuans and their supporters have been linked by the police and prosecutors to the November massacre.
Also on Thursday, the police moved the principal suspect in the massacre, Andal Ampatuan Jr., to a maximum-security prison in a Manila suburb. The Supreme Court ordered the transfer earlier this week, saying Mr. Ampatuan’s continued detention in the jail at police headquarters in Manila posed a security risk to the public.
Also Thursday, a group of Islamist militants released five hostages as they fled police and military forces in Lamitan township on the island of Basilan, The Associated Press reported, quoting the regional military commander, Lt. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino.
Dozens of fighters from Abu Sayyaf, the insurgent group with ties to Al Qaeda, staged an assault Tuesday on the provincial capital of Isabela, then retreated as government forces arrived. At least 14 people were killed in the siege, The A.P. said, including three marines, a police officer and three militants, one of whom was believed to be Bensar Indama, a senior Abu Sayyaf commander.
The New York Times
