Rebel poll fees a cause of concern - PD Marquez

While confident that killings similar in manner and scale to that of the Maguindanao massacre is remote in this province, Negros Oriental Police Provincial Office Director Sr. Supt. Augusto Marquez Jr. is concerned that the underground communist movement’s policy of demanding payment from candidates for permits to campaign and to win would cause “tensions particularly in the south.”

“There is no indication, that a similar incident in the magnitude of the massacre in Maguindanao will ever occur in the province owing to our cultural differences, but the continued demand and collection of payments for the permits to campaign and win by communist rebels may spell trouble ahead,” warns Marquez.

He shares that in the 2007 elections, the Philippine National Police Regional Office noted that the most number of demand letters from members of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army addressed to the candidates came from the province of Negros Oriental.

The military and the police have been reminding candidates for the 2010 elections not to succumb to the demands of the rebels. Should they need to campaign in rebel-influenced areas, the candidates are advised to seek assistance from the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines to secure the routes and areas during their campaign sorties.

The province has had its share of poll-related violence resulting to the deaths of candidates and their supporters as in the case of former Canlaon City Mayor Ondo Cardenas in the 1990s and the Manluminsag ambush in La Libertad in 2007.