MANILA, 11 May 2004 — Gun and grenade attacks killed at least 21 people ahead of yesterday’s Philippine elections, officials said, but the polling took place on schedule with no reports of major incidents or disruptions.
In the hours ahead of the voting, there were reports of abductions, a fire and various election law violations, officials said.
Filipinos cast ballots in contests dominated by the showdown between President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and her main challenger, action film star Fernando Poe Jr. Workers began counting votes in the afternoon, but official results were not expected for weeks because ballots must be tallied by hand in elections for some 17,000 national, provincial and local officials.
An unofficial “quick count” of the citizens’ poll watchdog Namfrel showed Arroyo and Poe neck and neck but two exit polls showed Arroyo likely to win six more years as president.
Nearly 230,000 police and troops were deployed to secure polling precincts and guard against violence or terrorist attacks in a country with a history of election violence and raging Marxist and Muslim insurgencies.
Two men on a motorcycle hurled a grenade in front of the campaign headquarters of a mayoral candidate late Sunday, killing two of his followers and wounding another in suburban Caloocan in metropolitan Manila, police said.
In southern Zamboanga del Norte province, men opened fire on the convoy of a mayoral candidate late Sunday afternoon, killing three of his followers and wounding three in the coastal town of La Libertad, the military said.
In the nearby southern town of Tampilisan early yesterday, gunmen killed three supporters of another mayoral candidate.
Another mayoral candidate’s supporter was killed by gunmen in southern Pagadian city Sunday, police said.
There were no immediate arrests in any of the killings, which brought the total of election-linked deaths to 114 with more than 160 others wounded since December.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Daniel Lucero predicted the violence would escalate.
“These first few hours is just the start of the rise of temperature and the boiling point will commence after the elections, when the votes are counted,” he said.
Election officials reported that an explosion set off a fire that gutted portions of a building and destroyed election documents in the central town of Taft in Eastern Samar province.
Elections director Ferdinand Rafanan said tens of thousands of election campaign documents loaded in two vans were confiscated by police in the region. Police were checking reports of vote-buying in one area, he said.
National police spokesman, Chief Supdt. Joel Goltiao, said authorities were looking into two reports of abductions of followers of local candidates, including a supporter of a mayoral candidate in Rodriguez town in Rizal, east of Manila.
