An incumbent mayor and her wards belonging to the LDP/Lakas alliance were abducted by suspected members of the New People’s Army in Samar on Monday after the mayor reportedly failed to pay the rebels’ “permit-to-campaign” (PTC) fees.
Mayor Minita Gabieta, mayoral candidate of the Lakas-CMD in Jabong, Western Samar, and Vice Mayor Armingol Caub, along with several councilors and supporters were later held for ransom of P500,000.
According to initial reports reaching Camp Crame, Gabieta and her party were abducted by alleged rebel suspects led by a certain Kumander Bambi for failing to pay the permit-to-campaign fees.
The rebels were reportedly demanding P200,000 from Gabieta, P75,000 from Caub and P7,500 each for the councilors. Four of the councilors were identified as Sixto Hernandez, Maria Labang, Reynaldo Limbanan and Hermenegildo Mabutin.
Reports said the rebels ordered Gabieta’s staff to go back to town to produce P200,000 in exchange for the release of the hostages. They came back with only P100,000, and the hostages were released on Monday evening.
Chief Supt. Dionisio Coloma has directed all police units to monitor the whereabouts of the abductors, who are believed to be hiding in barangay Cagusipan in Catbalogan.
Earlier, Senate President Frank Drilon chided the National Police to take a more aggressive stance in investigating cases involving election-related violence.
The Liberal Party that Drilon heads has been a victim of such violence. L.P. mayoral bet Alex Aranas of Pola, Oriental Mindoro, was earlier abducted by rebels. Five local L.P. leaders were abducted in Batangas and found dead two days later.
Also in Batangas, Venancio Centeno Jr., L.P. candidate for councilor in Talisay town, was shot dead by an unidentified gunman as he ate in a roadside restaurant.
Six more areas, meanwhile, are to be added to the list as “areas of immediate concern” in the upcoming elections by the Philippine National Police, bringing the total number to 25.
The areas of San Carlos, Pangasinan; Saramon, Isabela; Santiago, Isabela; Mataas na Kahoy, Batangas; Paglas, Maguindanao, and Kastilla, Masbate, were added to the list as “primary areas of concern” in the May polls.
Chief Supt. Joel Goltiao, PNP spokesman, said the PNP is intensifying efforts to neutralize private armies being bankrolled by politicians and violators of the election gun ban.
Goltiao said the police force has arrested 1,617 violators of the election gun ban, seizing 1,276 firearms, of which 357 are high-powered.
The election gun ban will run through June 7.
While the PNP has either neutralized or dismantled six partisan armed groups, there are still 119 such groups, with 81 operating in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
Thirty persons have been arrested for election-related incidents, but Goltiao does not expect the incidence (of election-related violence) to rise further.
As of this writing, the PNP has ranked Bicol region as the area most prone to election violence with 10 cases, the highest recorded in any region.
Goltiao stressed that there will be no overload of responsibility in their campaign, saying that duties and areas of jurisdiction are methodically planned out and distributed.
In a recent interview, Goltiao said that electoral candidates will play a vital role in assuring peaceful and orderly elections. He even urged them, particularly those seeking local positions, to sign a peace covenant.
Meanwhile in Maguindanao, a still undetermined number of assailants armed with high-powered firearms and believed to be members of a partisan armed group, strafed a farming village in the town of Datu Sangki last Monday.
Slain were Kabayan, Zacaria and Neria Kamlon. Two other family members, Mara, 10, and Maik, 13, were wounded.
According to reports, the armed men surrounded the victims’ house in barangay Dimaampo and suddenly went on a shooting spree, triggering pandemonium among residents.The victims were said to be a known supporters of local candidates belonging to the administration party.
Senior Supt. Amerodin Hamdog, Maguindanao police chief, said that they have yet to determine whether the attack was politically motivated, as the Kamlons are also known to be locked in a blood feud with other clans in the area. F. Marasigan, F. Legaspi
By Karl B. Kaufman, Reporter
THE Department of National Defense said on Thursday that at least 19 local candidates in five regions have paid the New People’s Army almost P6 million in “permit-to-campaign” fees. Alarmed by the failure of the authorities to discourage candidates from paying the fees, Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita warned the aspirants that by doing so, they are “abetting rebellion and terrorism” for which they could be held liable.
“We are not looking at these circumstances as seasonal, but as a progression in the strategy of the rebels to gain a foothold in our communities and to boost their logistic capability to pursue their ultimate goal of subverting our democratic processes,” Ermita said.
The Omnibus Election Code bans contributions in the pursuit of fraudulent campaign schemes, and the Revised Penal Code penalizes willing victims of felonies and the nonreporting of crimes.
Ermita said the candidates who pay the fees “would be followed up even during their incumbency to find out what kind of cooperation they are having with the NPA in their areas.”
The NPA is reportedly asking each candidate P50,000 to P500,000, depending on the position he’s running for.
Citing intelligence reports, Ermita said 10 of the 19 candidates are running for mayor, 3 for councilor, 2 for congressman, 2 for governor, 1 for vice mayor and 1 for an undisclosed position.
He declined to give names, saying it would endanger the lives of the candidates.
Ermita said the report has been sent to the Department of the Interior and Local Government for action.
The report shows most of the candidates are from Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, Central Visayas, Eastern Visayas and the Caraga region.
The report, presented to Ermita at a command conference at Camp Aguinaldo on Thursday, also labeled 14 local candidates as NPA supporters.
Military officials had called the fees a form of extortion. They said the NPA has become successful in the racket, because the candidates fail to coordinate security measures with the military in their campaign sorties, particularly in far-flung villages.
During the 2001 election, the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, raked in P12.5 million in campaign fees. It is expected to step up its efforts to exact the fees after the assets of the party abroad were frozen as a result of the terrorist label pinned on it by the US.
As if to emphasize their point, NPA rebels on Wednesday disarmed police and military escorts of a vice-mayoral candidate in Agusan del Sur who refused to pay the campaign fee.
The five bodyguards of Herminio Reyes, who is running for vice mayor in Loreto town, were subdued by about 25 heavily armed rebels while they were campaigning in Sitio Cabuga, Santa Teresa, the military reported.
Reyes was in a convoy with his entire slate when flagged down by the rebels, led by a certain Commander Jimmy Eyod of the group’s Front Committee-34.
Reyes’s security escort comprised two policemen, two militiamen and one soldier. Three M-16 rifles, one Ingram machine pistol, one 45-caliber pistol and one 12-gauge shotgun owned by Reyes were taken by the rebels.
Col. Leopoldo Maligalig, commanding officer of the 402nd Infantry Brigade, said Reyes and his party were released unharmed.
NPA accepts mobile phones as campaign fee - April 25, 2004
By Karl B. Kaufman, Reporter
The New People’s Army is accepting mobile phones as payment from candidates who want to campaign in NPA-controlled areas, Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita said over the weekend.
Several local candidates have in fact contributed mobile phones to the rebels as a form of campaign fee, Ermita said.
“A few are reported to have given not only money but also cell phones,” Ermita told reporters.
The rebels’ “permit-to-campaign” fees were discussed at length at the command conference of the antiterrorism task force in Camp Aguinaldo on Thursday, over which Ermita presided.
The mobile phones enhance the operational capability of the rebels because they are able to communicate more effectively, he said.
“I thought that this is a matter of concern for the authorities,” he said.
Besides cash and mobile phones, the rebels also demand guns and ammunition from the candidates, Ermita said.
The campaign fees paid by local candidates to the communist rebels in this year’s election have reached P6 million, or half of their campaign collection the in 2001 polls, he said.
The Department of National Defense said at least 19 candidates for local positions have paid campaign fees to the NPA. The aspirants come from Central Luzon, Southern Tagalog, the Bicol region and Eastern Visayas, military intelligence records show.
Ermita warned the candidates that the police and the military would watch them closely “even up to their incumbency to find out what kind of cooperation they have struck with the NPA in their areas.”
He said the candidates, whose names were not released to the media, could face possible criminal charges of aiding insurgents, although he said most maintain they were threatened into cooperating by the rebels.
“Candidates who give in to rebel demands or allow themselves to be backed by insurgents are abetting lawlessness, rebellion and even terrorism,” he said.
The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, intensified its fundraising efforts this election to make up for lack of funds from sympathizers abroad after Washington put the group on the list of foreign terrorist organizations two years ago.