EDITORIAL - Ambushed

No suspect has been arrested, but suspicion is focusing on political rivalry as the likely motive for the ambush the other day on the convoy of Iligan Rep. Vicente Belmonte in Misamis Oriental. Belmonte survived but three of his aides were killed.

The ambush has raised concern about the escalation of political violence as the general elections approach. A senator counted 10 local executives murdered so far in the past two years in cases linked to political rivalries.

Yesterday authorities announced the creation of a task force to get Belmonte’s assailants. The gunmen set fire to one of their getaway vehicles as they fled from the scene of the crime near the new airport in Laguindingan town. Belmonte’s convoy was driving away from the airport when the gunmen attacked.

Apart from political rivalry, probers are also looking at the communist New People’s Army and organized crime rings as possible perpetrators. Regardless of who was responsible, the attack should lead to tighter security preparations for the approaching election season.

Filipinos have come to regard as normal a death toll of 70 to 80 during elections. The fatalities include not only candidates and their supporters but also election personnel, including teachers who man polling centers. In other countries, even a single political assassination or election-related murder is cause for serious concern.

As in the killings of dozens of journalists in the past two decades, the failure to solve most of the election-related murders inevitably breeds impunity. As long as they believe they can get away with it, there will be politicians who will want their rivals eliminated permanently. And they won’t have difficulty looking for individuals willing to stage contract killings for as low as five figures. Even members of the New People’s Army are believed to work as hired guns for fund-raising.

Apart from political assassinations, milder forms of violence are used to harass and intimidate candidates and their supporters.  Perpetrators not only get away with murder but also get to occupy the contested office. In the rare times that they are unseated in connection with murder, the term for the contested post is usually almost over.

Every politically motivated ambush is an attack on the democratic process. It’s time to disabuse Filipinos from the belief that murder is the ultimate political weapon. The best way to ensure this is by catching murderers and sending them to prison.