EDITORIAL — No end to violence

Shortly after President Arroyo vowed to keep the elections free of violence, a town mayor of Samar was gunned down in a daring attack early last Thursday. Reports said Daram Mayor Benito Astorga was with four police bodyguards when five men walked up to him during a benefit dance celebrating the village fiesta and opened fire. As he lay bloodied, two of the gunmen finished him off. All five killers escaped.

Although no suspect has been identified, police smelled politics and said it was the first election-related violence this year. The period had to be clarified because violence in the run-up to the midterm elections in May started last year, with the murder of Abra Rep. Luis Bersamin in a Quezon City church compound the most brazen so far.

Violence has long been a feature of elections in this country. But this should not be an excuse to stop trying to stop the violence. There are politicians who believe that the best way to get rid of a rival is murder. This thinking has persisted because no administration has managed to curb the proliferation of loose firearms, and people have too often managed to get away with murder. For these same reasons, the murders of judges, prosecutors, journalists and leftist militants have continued long after the restoration of democracy. Election-related violence is generally worse at the local level. And the violence can only intensify when the national government steps in and uses state power to eliminate a political threat to an administration candidate.

The culture of violence cannot be eliminated overnight. But the President can show that her commitment to peaceful elections goes beyond lip service. She can order an honest-to-goodness crackdown on private armies, which have the largest arsenals of unlicensed firearms. She can tell her political allies that the equity of the incumbent does not include the license to use force. And she can tell law enforcers to do their job and solve crimes. Every unsolved killing emboldens others to settle scores through murder. Unless decisive action is taken to curb violence, Astorga’s murder will not be last before the elections.