By CARLOS H. CONDE
The New York Times
Published: November 23, 2009
MANILA — In one of the worst incidents of election- related violence in the Philippines in recent memory, a group of more than 40 people — including lawyers, journalists and relatives of a local politician — were kidnapped by armed men Monday, and military officials said at least 21 of them had been killed.
Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner, a military spokesman in Manila, said 21 bodies had been recovered in Maguindanao, a province on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines that has often been wracked by election violence. Thirteen of the dead were women, according to the military. Twenty-two people were unaccounted for, according to military officials.
Maj. Gen. Alfredo Cayton, a security official in the province, said in a radio interview that the victims had been shot. But relatives of most of the victims said at least 30 abductees had been killed and many of them beheaded by a group of about 100 men.
Jesus Dureza, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s adviser on Mindanao, recommended that a state of emergency be declared on Maguindanao Province.”Everyone should be disarmed. Anything less will not work,” he told reporters in the south.
The victims were reportedly stopped on their way to an election office to file candidacy papers for Esmael Mangudadatu, the vice mayor of the town of Buluan, who plans to run for governor of Maguindanao. Mr. Mangudadatu said on ABS-CBN television that his wife, his sister and several other female relatives had been in the group and that he had received confirmation that they had been killed.
He said they had been filing his candidacy documents in the hope that women would not be attacked. Lawyers and reporters accompanied the group, although the military did not identify the bodies they had recovered.
“We believe more bodies are buried,” Colonel Brawner said, according to Reuters. “Unfortunately, the killing happened before our troops got there.”
Mr. Mangudadatu’s uncle, Pax Mangudadatu, the governor of Sultan Kudarat Province, said the deputy mayor’s supporters had been attacked by backers of Andal Ampatuan, the current governor of Maguindanao. The families are bitter political enemies.
The governor did not issue an immediate comment about the attack.
The filing of candidacy documents for the local and national elections, scheduled for next May, began Friday. The official campaign period begins a few months before the elections.
Attacks on candidates and supporters during campaign periods are common throughout the Philippines. In the 2007 local elections, nearly 100 people were killed in such attacks.
Election violence is more extreme in Maguindanao, where an Islamic insurgency and decades-old clan wars complicate the security situation. Loose firearms, many of them in the hands of criminal groups and political warlords, have worsened the situation in this and other areas.
The Arroyo administration expressed shock and outrage at the killings on Monday.
“Justice will be served, and the perpetrators will be punished, whoever they are,” said Gabriel Claudio, Mrs. Arroyo’s chief political adviser.
Carlos Isagani Zarate, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao, called the attack a “brutal and barbaric display of naked power.” Two officials with his union, Connie Brizuela and Cynthia Joquindo, both attorneys for Esmael Mangudadatu, were believed Monday to be among the dead.
Steve Rood, representative to the Philippines of The Asia Foundation, a United States-funded body that has studied the conflict in Mindanao, said the violence in the region was the result not just of the Islamic insurgency but also of the “struggles for power and prominence among families.”
Mr. Rood said he expected the national election commission to take control of security in Maguindanao Province during the elections, much as it did in the town of Abra in the north in 2007 after the assassination of a politician. In such cases, the commission has direct command over the Philippine police and the military.
