Election-related violent (ERV) incidents are expected to escalate further as the May 9 polls draw nearer, according to a study released by the Ateneo School of Government (ASOG) through the Ateneo Policy Center (APC).
In the past three election periods, researchers from the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) led by Imelda B. Deinla found that there were a total of 351 election-related incidents in the country.
The study also showed that the majority or 195 of such recorded incidents were lethal or resulted in at least one death.
“As the Philippines goes into the 2022 national elections to elect new sets of national and local leaders, there is danger that the Philippines may yet again experience a surge of electoral violence given the highly contested nature of these elections,” the study predicted.
“It is for this reason that this study has been conducted to specifically locate spatial trends, or where and when ERVs might be on the uptake and identify risk factors that may correlate to these patterns,” it added.
In order to prevent an upsurge of violence in the country’s elections, the ASOG-APC said there is a need to implement anti-political dynasty reforms which have been severely plaguing Philippine local politics since the end of the Marcos era.
Previous ASOG-APC studies have shown that dynasties continue to rise across all local elected positions since 1987. The study warned that this trend might only further perpetuate ERVs.
“Using the ASOG Political Dynasties Dataset, a positive relationship was observed between the number of ERV incidents and the concentration of dynastic officials in a province for a given year. That is, more dynastic provinces are more likely to exhibit higher total incidents of ERVs than less dynastic provinces,” the study stated.
Further, the researchers said stronger legislative frameworks that respond to matters relating to firearms ownership and against the establishment of private armies should be crafted.
There is also a need for more collaborative and coordinated efforts to address the means, effects and causes of election violence in the Philippines.
Findings
The data showed that 77 percent or 63 out of the 81 provinces in the country were reported to have at least one ERV incident between 2012 and 2019.
The ERV hot spots were Malabon City, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte, and Zamboanga del Sur, Cebu, Eastern Samar, Batangas, Quezon, Masbate, Nueva Ecija, Ilocos Norte, Abra, La Union, and Isabela.
Further, the study found the majority of the ERV incidents targeted state actors or incumbent re-electionist public officials, non-state actors or ordinary citizens or known supporters of other candidates. Other ERV targets were armed groups, civil society, foreign nationals, and unknown persons.
The dataset also showed a build-up of ERV incidents targeting state actors the most just days before the election. Ordinary citizens became targets in these incidents on election day.
Then, a significant number of ERV incidents targeting state actors once again occur right after the election date. Majority of these post-election day targets involved candidates waiting on the election results or poll officials.
“This may indicate that perpetrators employ more lethal ERVs against state actors prior or after election day [including incumbent re-electionist public officials, opposing candidates and electoral officials] to eliminate rivals and intimidate supporters, while employing non-lethal ERVs against civilians and voters throughout the election season,” the study said.
The dataset was constructed from publicly available media reports, as there is no publicly available dataset from government institutions. The list of media sources used in the study included the BusinessMirror.
This was mainly due to the absence of official data from the Philippine National Police (PNP), the agency tasked with collating and reporting on election related violence.
The researchers said the PNP has not disclosed to the general public incident level data on election-related violence in those election years.
Image credits: Roy Domingo