LEMERY, Philippines: The husband of a town mayor was killed and a bomb attack injured four people in separate incidents of violence linked to Philippine mid-term elections next week, police said yesterday.
The attacks came as national police went on heightened alert for fear of more violence before the May 13 vote.
Gunmen shot dead John Apura in an ambush as he was campaigning for his wife on the central island of Panay, provincial police chief Chief Superintendent Agrimero Cruz said in a statement.
An aide was also killed while another was wounded in the attack, he said.
Apura’s wife Ligaya Apura is running for re-election in the Panay town of Lemery and told police they had received death threats.
“It was a politically motivated attack because my husband had received a prior threat,” said a distraught Apura, who is running under the opposition coalition.
She also said armed men had been threatening her political supporters although she would not identify those behind the violence.
In another incident, a bomb was hurled at the home of Roderick Furigay, mayor of Lamitan City on the southern island of Basilan, late Sunday and wounded four people, said city police chief Chief Inspector Almer Ismael.
The mayor was meeting his political supporters when the attack occurred.
Furigay, a member of President Benigno Aquino’s coalition, was unhurt.
Filipinos go to the polls next week to vote for more than 18,000 posts, from town mayors to members of parliament. Intense political rivalries are common, especially in the countryside.
On April 25 gunmen killed 13 people in an ambush on a mayor’s convoy in the southern island of Mindanao.
Days earlier a mayor allied to Aquino was hurt and her two aides killed in a similar attack by communist rebels also in the south.
Commission on Elections spokesman James Jimenez said political violence was expected but a police presence would be increased in areas deemed as critical.
“We hope it doesn’t escalate any further but it is something that we are not very surprised about,” he told AFP. — AFP