Money, power, violence in high-stakes Philippine elections

Money, power, violence in high-stakes Philippine elections
Philippines election hopefuls like mayoral candidate Kerwin Espinosa have to ask themselves whether the job is worth taking a bullet. (Reuters/File)
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Updated 19 April 2025
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Money, power, violence in high-stakes Philippine elections

Money, power, violence in high-stakes Philippine elections
  • The country’s elections commission, Comelec, recorded 46 acts of political violence
  • Comelec said “fewer than 20” candidates have been killed so far this campaign season, which it notes is a drop

MANILA: Philippines 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 January 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,” commission spokesperson John Rex Laudiangco told AFP, citing a tally of about 100 deaths in the last general election.
Analysts warned that such violence will likely remain a fixture of the Philippines’ political landscape.
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.
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 50 meters (164 feet) away, according to police.
Police Brig. Gen. Jean Fajardo told reporters this week that seven police officers were “being investigated” as suspects.
Convictions, however, are hard to come by.
While Comelec’s Laudiangco insisted recent election-related shootings were all making their way through regional court systems, he could provide no numbers.
Data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project show that in 79 percent of violent acts targeting local government members between 2018 and 2022 the perpetrators were never identified.
National-level politicians, meanwhile, reliant on local political bases to deliver votes, have little incentive to press for serious investigations, said Reyes.
“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.”
It’s part of the “grand bargain” in Philippine politics, Arguelles said.
Local elites are “tolerated by the national government so long as during election day they can also deliver votes when they’re needed.”
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.
Election-season violence has long plagued the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, known as the BARMM.
Comelec assumed “direct control” over the municipalities of Buluan and Datu Odin Sinsuat after municipal election officer Bai Maceda Lidasan Abo and her husband were shot dead last month.
Since last year, Comelec has held the power to directly control and supervise not only local election officials but also law enforcement.
Top police officials in the two municipalities were removed for “gross negligence and incompetence” after allegedly ignoring requests to provide security details for the slain Comelec official.
Their suspensions, however, will last only from “campaigning up to... the swearing-in of the winners,” Comelec’s Laudiangco said.
The commission’s actions were part of a “tried and tested security plan” that is showing real results, he said.
But he conceded that the interwoven nature of family, power and politics in the provinces would continue to create a combustible brew.
“You have a lot of closely related people in one given jurisdiction... That ensures polarization. It becomes personal between neighbors.
“We all know Filipinos are clannish, that’s our culture. But we’re improving slowly.”


Militants kill at least 23 in Nigeria attack, security sources say

Militants kill at least 23 in Nigeria attack, security sources say
Updated 57 min 16 sec ago
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Militants kill at least 23 in Nigeria attack, security sources say

Militants kill at least 23 in Nigeria attack, security sources say

MAIDUGURI: At least 23 farmers and fishermen were killed and others abducted by suspected Islamist militants in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state this week, security sources and local residents told Reuters.
Nigeria has been grappling with a long-running insurgency in its northeast, primarily driven by the Islamist armed group Boko Haram and its offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province.
The latest attack happened in the village of Malam Karanti on Thursday morning, the security sources and residents said.
A spokesman for Nigeria’s army did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment.
Local resident Sani Auwal said by phone that militants had gathered farmers and fishermen near the village and killed 23 people, many of them bean farmers. They spared an elderly man who later alerted the community, he said.
Another local resident Usman Ali said the community had tried to recover the bodies of those killed but had been chased back by the militants.
Last month Borno’s governor acknowledged that Boko Haram had renewed attacks and kidnappings in the state, reversing previous gains by security forces.


India and US at odds on Kashmir truce with Pakistan — analysts

India and US at odds on Kashmir truce with Pakistan — analysts
Updated 17 May 2025
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India and US at odds on Kashmir truce with Pakistan — analysts

India and US at odds on Kashmir truce with Pakistan — analysts
  • Trump announced the truce after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks from both sides, killing about 70 people
  • President Trump’s rhetoric about the ceasefire is ‘irritating’ for India, an important ally for the US, an analyst says

NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump’s claim to have helped end fighting between arch-rivals India and Pakistan has driven a wedge between him and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, analysts say.

A week since Trump announced a surprise truce between India and Pakistan to end a brief but intense conflict, New Delhi and Washington differ about the way it was achieved.

The US administration thought “an intervention at this stage might give them some basic benefit in terms of highlighting Trump’s role,” Indian foreign policy expert Harsh V. Pant told AFP.

“That... became the driver and in a sense the hurry which with Trump announced the ceasefire,” said Pant from the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation (ORF) think tank.

Fighting began when India launched strikes on May 7 against what it called “terrorist camps” in Pakistan following an April militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people.

New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing the militants it claimed were behind the attack, which Pakistan denies.

Trump announced the truce after four days of missile, drone and artillery attacks from both sides, killing about 70 people, including dozens of civilians, and sent thousands fleeing.

He later boasted about bringing India and Pakistan “back from the brink,” telling Fox News on Friday it was “a bigger success than I’ll ever be given credit for.”

New Delhi however shrugs off these claims, which go against decades-long Indian policy that opposes foreign mediation in conflicts with Islamabad.

India and Pakistan claim the currently divided Kashmir in full. New Delhi considers the Himalayan region an internal matter, with politicians long viewing external mediation as a sign of weakness.

Modi’s first speech since the ceasefire did not mention US involvement and his government has since insisted that talks with Pakistan are “strictly bilateral.”

India was also quick to dismiss Trump’s suggestion that trade pressures hastened a truce.

“The issue of trade did not come up” in discussions with US officials, the Indian foreign ministry said this week.

According to ORF fellow Manoj Joshi, Trump’s rhetoric is “irritating” for India — whose strategic location and massive market size have made the country an important ally for the United States.

But India is being “very cautious” because it is in negotiations for a trade deal with Washington to avoid steep tarriffs, he said.

“We (India) would like the agenda to go in a different direction,” said Joshi.

It is also a thorny matter domestically.

Main opposition Congress party said Trump’s announcement had “upstaged” the Hindu nationalist leader’s “much-delayed address.”

It also demanded an all-party meeting to ask whether India is changing its policy on “third-party mediation” for Kashmir, disputed between Pakistan and India.

The two South Asian rivals had in the 1970s agreed to settle “differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations.”

Modi has previously poked fun at former Congress governments for “weak” responses against Pakistan in various skirmishes.

“So India would obviously respond to that and deny that... about as politely as they feel they can get away with,” said South Asia researcher Pramit Pal Chaudhuri of political consultancy Eurasia Group.

Trump’s claimed mediation was welcomed by Islamabad, which “needed an American intervention to give them the off-ramp they needed to get out of a conflict,” Chaudhuri added.

On Thursday, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar reaffirmed that “where Pakistan is concerned, our relations, our dealings with them will be bilateral, and strictly bilateral.”

But the same day, speaking from Qatar, Trump repeated claims of brokering a ceasefire and using trade as a tool.

“(I said) let’s do trade instead of war. And Pakistan was very happy with that, and India was very happy with that,” Trump said in his speech.

It has been a decade since Modi last met a Pakistani leader. Since then, relations have deteriorated, coming to a head when India unilaterally revoked in 2019 limited autonomy of the part of Kashmir it administers.

According to Joshi, “the hyphenation of India and Pakistan” is also “irritating” for New Delhi, which has tried to carve out a separate identity on the global stage.

“The optics of Trump hammering it day after day... is politically damaging for Modi,” Sushant Singh, a former Indian soldier and South Asian studies lecturer at Yale University, wrote on X.

“[Modi] can’t personally counter Trump, and despite attempts by India’s big media to play it down, social media amplifies Trump,” Singh said.


British police charge three Iranians in counter terrorism probe

British police charge three Iranians in counter terrorism probe
Updated 17 May 2025
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British police charge three Iranians in counter terrorism probe

British police charge three Iranians in counter terrorism probe

British police have charged three Iranian men with offenses under the National Security Act after a major counter-terrorism investigation, the police said on Saturday.
British counter-terrorism police arrested eight men including seven Iranians earlier this month in two separate operations in what the British interior minister called some of the biggest investigations of their kind in recent years.
Mostafa Sepahvand, Farhad Javadi Manesh, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori were charged with engaging in conduct likely to assist a foreign intelligence service between August 14, 2024, and February 16, 2025, the police said in a statement.
The foreign state to which the charges relate is Iran, they added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has previously said he was “disturbed” to learn that Iranian citizens had been arrested by British authorities.
The British government has placed Iran on the highest tier of its foreign influence register, requiring Tehran to register everything it does to exert political influence in the UK.


Police investigate disappearance of Melania Trump’s statue in her native Slovenia

Police investigate disappearance of Melania Trump’s statue in her native Slovenia
Updated 17 May 2025
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Police investigate disappearance of Melania Trump’s statue in her native Slovenia

Police investigate disappearance of Melania Trump’s statue in her native Slovenia

LJUBLJANA, Slovenia: Police in Slovenia are investigating the disappearance of a bronze statue of US first lady Melania Trump that was sawed off and carried away from her hometown.
The life-size sculpture was unveiled in 2020 during President Donald Trump’s first term in office near Sevnica in central Slovenia, where Melanija Knavs was born in 1970. It replaced a wooden statue that had been set on fire earlier that year.
Police spokeswoman Alenka Drenik Rangus said Friday that the police were informed about the theft of the statue on Tuesday. She said police were working to track down those responsible.
According to Slovenian media reports, the bronze replica was sawed off at the ankles and removed.
Franja Kranjc, who works at a bakery in Sevnica that sells cakes with Melania Trump’s name in support of the first lady, said the stolen statue won’t be missed.
“I think no one was really proud at this statue, not even the first lady of the USA,” he said. “So I think its OK that it’s removed.”
The original wooden statue was torched in July 2020. The rustic figure was cut from the trunk of a linden tree, showing her in a pale blue dress like the one she wore at Trump’s presidential inauguration in 2017. The replica bronze statue has no obvious resemblance with the first lady.


They once lived the 'gangster life.' Now they tackle food insecurity in Kenya's slums

They once lived the 'gangster life.' Now they tackle food insecurity in Kenya's slums
Updated 17 May 2025
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They once lived the 'gangster life.' Now they tackle food insecurity in Kenya's slums

They once lived the 'gangster life.' Now they tackle food insecurity in Kenya's slums

MATHARE: Joseph Kariaga and his friends once lived the “gangster life” in Nairobi’s Mathare slum, snatching phones, mugging people and battling police. But when Kariaga's brother was shot dead by police, the young men took stock.
“We said, 'We cannot live like this. We are going to lose our lives.’ Many of our friends had died,” said Kariaga, now 27. “I reflected on my life. I had to change.”
Now the men are farmers with a social mission. Nearly a dozen of them founded Vision Bearerz in 2017 to steer youth away from crime and address food insecurity in one of Kenya’s poorest communities.
Despite challenges, Vision Bearerz makes a modest but meaningful community impact, including feeding over 150 children at lunches each week. Some residents praise the group and call the men role models.
Amid cuts to foreign funding by the United States and others, experts say local organizations like this may be the future of aid.
Vision Bearerz works on an urban farm tucked away in the muddy streets and corrugated-metal homes that make up Mathare, one of Africa's most populous slums. Estimates say about a half-million people live in this neighborhood of less than two square kilometers.
Some 2 million people, or 60% of Nairobi’s population, live in informal settlements, according to CFK Africa, a non-governmental organization that runs health and poverty reduction programs in such neighborhoods and is familiar with Vision Bearerz' work.
Lack of infrastructure is a key challenge in these communities, which are growing amid sub-Saharan Africa’s rapid urbanization and booming youth population, said Jeffrey Okoro, the group’s executive director.
Poverty pushes youth into crime, Okoro added.
“Most folks in slums such as Mathare are not able to earn enough to buy a decent meal, and kids who are under 5 are twice as likely to be malnourished,” he said. “One of the other major challenges affecting young people is gangs, and the promise of making a quick buck.”
The farmers of Vision Bearerz know this well.
“When you are born from this land, there is not much you have inherited, so you have to make it yourself,” said Ben Njoki, 28, whose face tattoos are reminders of a gang-affiliated past. “You have to use violence.”
In 2017, not long after Kariaga’s brother was killed, Njoki and other young men made a plan to change. More than a dozen people they grew up with had been killed, and they realized they would follow if they did not find an alternative to crime, said Moses Nyoike, 32, the chair of Vision Bearerz.
To keep busy, the group began collecting garbage and would split profits from trading vegetables, buying produce in another county and reselling it locally. They noticed a gap in the supply of vegetables to Mathare, and with permission from authorities they cleaned up a garbage dump and began planting.
Polluted soil, and water rationing, made it a tough start. Then, inspired by a TikTok account that showcased farming in a Colombian slum, Vision Bearerz tried their hand at hydroponics. With the help of an NGO that supports community enterprises, Growth4Change, they were able to get materials and training in urban farming methods.
Today, Vision Bearerz grows vegetables, raises pigs and farms tilapia in a small pond. They sell a portion of what they produce, with revenue also coming from running a car wash and public toilet.
With the earnings, the group buys maize flour to make ugali, a dough-like staple food, and beans, which supplement produce from their farm in weekly lunches for children.
Vision Bearerz also runs outreach programs to warn against drug use and crime, and has sessions where women teach girls about feminine health.
“The life I was living was a lie. It didn’t add up to anything. We just lost people. Now, we are winning people in the community,” Njoki said.
Davis Gichere, 28, another founding member, called the work therapeutic.
Challenges remain. Joining Vision Bearerz requires a pledge to leave crime behind, and there have been instances of recidivism, with at least one member arrested. Lingering criminal reputations have led to police harassment in the past, and finding money to buy food for Saturday feedings is a weekly struggle.
Funding cuts across the development space, including the dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, make the prospect of new financing dim.
At least one other group in Nairobi’s Kibera slum, Human Needs Project, does similar work of urging youth away from crime and addressing food insecurity through urban farming.
It's a model that can be scaled up or copied elsewhere, said Okoro of CFK Africa.
“The future of development is locally led organizations," he said, noting they are best suited to understanding the needs of their communities.
Kariaga still feels the pain of his brother’s death, but is proud of his new job.
“Farming can change the world,” he said, a silver-capped tooth glinting in the sun.
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