EU concerned about poll violence

MANILA, Philippines - The European Union (EU) has urged the government to take appropriate steps to ensure peaceful elections on May 10.

Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, European Union delegation head, said the EU is concerned about the political violence and the killing of 57 people, mostly journalists, in Mindanao last November.

“I fear that elections in 2010 might follow the normal pattern of local political violence. We urge the government to take proper steps to ensure that the election would be peaceful,” MacDonald said.

Speaking to reporters at the Mandarin Hotel in Makati on Monday, MacDonald said the EU Parliament passed on Thursday a resolution condemning the Maguindanao massacre and urged the Philippine government to effectively prosecute all those involved.

“But I’m very much hopeful that these elections will be more peaceful and that serious efforts will be made to remove private armies and that this election will be a model for future elections,” he said.

Independent United Nations human rights experts called the mass killings in Maguindanao “a tragedy of the first order.”

Philip Alston, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, and Frank La Rue, special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, said a broader inquiry into the political system would need to focus on ways and means of enhancing protection for journalists in the future.

The mass killing in Maguindanao must be seen as a watershed moment to bring the perpetrators to justice and take measures to prevent such crimes in the future, they added.

Alston and La Rue said the first step is to ensure that the police investigation is “comprehensive and independent,” and that must be followed by effective prosecution of those responsible for the killings.

The murder of political opponents, combined with a massive assault on the media, must be tackled at various levels that go well beyond standard investigations, they added.

They said the massacre also demanded a more extensive reflection on the elite family-dominated manipulation of the political processes and the need to eliminate such practices.

Alston and La Rue said elections in the Philippines have traditionally become occasions for widespread extrajudicial executions of political opponents.

The government must immediately set up a high-level task force to identify measures to prevent killings that occur in the run-up to elections, they added.

Early voting

The Senate committee on amendments, revisions of codes and laws has approved “in principle” the bill that would allow the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to hold early elections.

Sen. Francis Escudero, committee chairman, said he is ready to present the report for Senate Bill 2972 which seeks to allow early voting in areas facing threats of violence or terrorism.

“I think it’s a simple enough bill. It’s an open and shut bill,” he said.

“Either (the senators) want it or they don’t want it. I hope a majority of the senators will support this bill.”

Escudero said the technical working group, including Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal and Director Ferdinand Rafanan, are drafting the guidelines of the measure for implementation.

The early voting bill was introduced by Sen. Richard Gordon to increase participation and relieve congestion of polling stations on election day.

Escudero said he is hoping the bill would be ratified before Congress goes into recess for the campaign period.

Since the Comelec is about to enter the 90-day campaign period for national officials, a transitory provision may well be provided to effectively conduct advanced voting, he added.

Escudero said the bill seeks to empower the Comelec to choose the areas where early voting would be held.

“Comelec has been delegated with authority (to name the areas for early voting) but we have set a criteria and a cap,” he said.

“It might turn out that almost half the country would be subject to early voting. That cannot be,” he added.

“It is clear that the Comelec cannot (but) is still trying to do everything to allocate the necessary steps and resources to guard every place in the country.

“But they need to be given leeway, power and chance to concentrate their resources in areas that need concentration as, in our past experience, these areas never had clean, honest and fair elections.” -Pia Lee-Brago, Christina Mendez