Tuesday, May 01, 2007 Ajero: Elections and killings By Antonio M. Ajero The sentry post
THE latest victim of election violence in a neighboring province is one Narding Ongcal, member of the congressional staff of Rep. Manuel "Way Kurat" Zamora of the First District of Compostela Valley.
Ongcal was shot dead Monday morning in the town of Montevista, where he is also Way Kurat's election coordinator. A barangay councilman, Ongcal had no known enemies, according to his relatives and close friends.
Political killings like that of poor Narding are expected to increase as the May 14 midterm election approaches.
Many Filipinos are really wondering why in many areas of the country, candidates and their supporters resort to killings. I noticed that the killings happen mostly in depressed areas, where politicians should really be moving heaven and earth to improve the lives of constituents, not kill each other. Are the positions being contested worth killing for? This is a question often asked by Dabawenyos who are lucky to have witnessed no election violence in their lives, elections in Davao City being always peaceful and bloodless ever since.
And yet, it is seldom that elections in this city are not hotly-contested. The only times that the incumbent mayor did not have a strong challenger were in 1995 when Mayor Rody Duterte ran for his second term, and this year, when he is seeking reelection for his last term in his comeback.
The first election between Carmelo Porras and Gaudioso Tiongco, both civil engineers, in 1955 and their return bout in 1959 were hotly contested. The same was true in 1963 when it was the turn of Manuel "Noli" Sotto, then the undivided Davao province's vice governor, to challenge Porras. Meloy Porras, who had always opposed the incumbent Philippine President, defeated all three. In yet another close fight in 1967, Porras finally succumbed to his vice mayor Elias Lopez.
In 1971, Porras tried a comeback, against Lopez, but it was a third mayoral bet -- Luis T. Santos, a college dropout -- who won. The rest is history.
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Former President Bill Clinton, the first ever First Gentleman of the United States of America if wife Hilary wins and thus becomes USA's first woman president, will not be idle. Hilary Rodham Clinton declared in Iowa last Saturday that if elected president, she would make her husband a roaming ambassador to the world, using his skills to repair the nation's tattered image abroad.
"I can't think of a better cheerleader for America than Bill Clinton, can you?" the Democratic senator from New York asked a crowd jammed into a junior high school gymnasium. If this happens -- the First Gentleman of USA being part of the solution, not part of the problem, Filipinos will be green with envy.
