With the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls just two weeks away, a municipal election officer was shot and seriously wounded together with two companions in Lanao del Norte. Investigators said that prior to the ambush, the victim, Pangalian Lumabao, was the subject of complaints about poll-related irregularities in the remote town of Tangkal where he serves as election officer.
The alleged anomalies include the illegal collection of P300 as filing fee from every candidate and the acceptance of new voters from Lanao del Sur. Are these sufficient reasons to shoot someone dead? The positions at stake in the elections on Oct. 25 are the lowest in the rungs of government, with individual remuneration hardly qualifying as a decent wage. The youth councils are headed for abolition. Yet even in this electoral exercise, people are willing to kill not just political rivals but also election officers. As for those who get caught in the crossfire, tough luck.
The other day authorities said some 2,300 barangays had been classified as election hot spots and were being closely monitored for poll-related violence. The ambush of Lumabao and his companions on Thursday morning clearly showed the need for better monitoring. Murder has long been used as a political weapon in this country. Political rivals and their supporters as well as media critics are routinely eliminated permanently, with the perpetrators confident that they will get away with their crime.
If the police theory is correct, it is not surprising that an election officer of a remote town would be ambushed over a seemingly petty reason. In 2007, a teacher and a poll watcher were killed when gunmen including cops barged into a schoolhouse that was being used as a polling center in Taysan town in Batangas. The gunmen burned ballot boxes and then torched the building. A town mayor was linked to the crime. Last November, a clan feud over the post of governor in Maguindanao, one of the least developed provinces in the country, led to the brutal massacre of 57 people.
The passion stirred by politics in this country should compel authorities to heighten efforts to prevent violence during electoral exercises. Many candidates in the coming elections are backed by influential politicians. Private armies must be neutralized and gun laws strictly enforced. And the best crime deterrent cannot be repeated often enough: perpetrators must be caught and punished.