MANILA – The Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) has disqualified 56 candidates running for local positions in the coming May 10 polls in Maguindanao province, Mindanao where 57 people were massacred on November 23, a Comelec spokesman announced.
Among those disqualified, the spokesman said, are 42 candidates belonging to the ruling Lakas-Kampi Christian Muslim Democrats. The rest, he added, are running as independents.
The spokesman explained the Comelec ordered their disqualification because not one of the 56 candidates has been found to be a registered voter in the towns where they are seeking elective positions in the polls.
Maguindanao has been under the tight control of the powerful and influential Ampatuan clan whose rise to power coincided with the accession into Malacanang of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2001.
Some members of the clan, headed by its patriarch former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan, have been linked by the police to the November 23 massacre of 57 people, including the wife and other close relatives of the scion of a rival clan and 30 Mindanao-based journalists.
But because of the massacre, leaders of Lakas-Kampi unanimously voted late last year to expel the patriarch and other members of the clan from the party.
The spokesman explained that the country’s election laws, a candidate for a local position must be a registered voter of the “barangay†(village), town, city or province where he intends to run.
In the case of those seeking to be members of the provincial board and municipal or city council, the candidates must be residents of the district which they intend to represent, the spokesman also pointed out.
But more than that, he said the Comelec law department also recommended the filing of criminal charges against the 56 candidates for allegedly violating the country’s Omnibus Election Code.
The spokesman said such violation carries a penalty of imprisonment of from one to six years, perpetual disqualification from holding public office and cancellation of the right to vote.
In the town of Datu Unsay, he said the administration bets for mayor, vice mayor and eight municipal council seats were also found not to be qualified.
The spokesman did not clarify, however, whether the incumbent mayor, Andal Ampatuan Junior, the son and namesake of the clan patriarch, was one of those disqualified.
Mayor Ampatuan is now undergoing trial before a lower court in Metro Manila for multiple murder as the principal accused in the massacre of 57 people in the town of Ampatuan.
In addition, other members of the clan, headed by the patriarch and son suspended Governor Zaldy Ampatuan of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), have also been charged with allegedly fomenting a rebellion against the Arroyo administration in connection with the massacre.
At the same time, the spokesman disclosed that two of the administration candidates are running for vice mayor and 12 for councilor in the towns of Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Shariff Saydona Mustapha.
Administration bets for mayor, vice mayor and six councilors in capital town of Shariff Aguak were likewise disqualified, along with candidates for mayor, vice mayor and eight council seats in Datu Salibu town, the spokesman added.
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