Philippine candidates shot dead

Press, 4 January 1988, Page 6

Philippine candidates shot dead

NZPA-AP Manila A pro-Administration candidate was shot dead on Negros island and a candidate in the Manila area said yesterday that he had received death threats, as tension mounted in advance of the January 18 regional elections.

The police said gunmen shot dead Gabriel Hinolan as he sat on a podium waiting to deliver a speech at a campaign rally in Escalante, 504 km south of Manila, where he was the Aquino Administration candidate for the town council.

The gunmen escaped. Mr Hinolan was the eighteenth candidate shot dead since campaigning began last month for the regional election, in which voters will choose provincial governors, mayors,. council members and other local officials.

Meanwhile, a mayoral candidate, Jose Mari Gonzalez, told reporters he had received a death threat on Thursday, in a note sent to him in a gift box, which also included a grenade and a round for an M-16 rifle. Mr Gonzalez, a candidate of Vice-President Salvador Laurel’s UNIDO party for the election in suburban Mandaluyong, also said his wife was followed last month by four armed men as she shopped in a commercial district of Manila.

The heightened political tension prompted Mr Laurel to call on Sunday for the postponement of the elections in areas where people were not free to vote because of the strong influence of communist rebels or gangs loyal to political bosses.

On Friday, the Chief of Staff, General Fidel Ramos, said that rebels were demanding extortion payments from pro-Adminis-tration candidates and were hiring themselves out to sympathetic hopefuls to intimidate their opponents.

Mr Ramos identified the northern provinces of Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, Abra and Kalinga-Apayao as trouble spots. Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, also expressed fears about the situation in northern Luzon, where rebels, Administration politicians and others loyal to the

ousted President, Ferdinand Marcos, are all vying for support.

The Commission on Elections has postponed balloting in the southern provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi and in several cities on Mindanao island because of fears of violence. It has scheduled hearings on Thursday in La Union province to consider delaying the vote in the north too.

Including the 18 candidates, 42 people have died in pre-election violence since the campaign began on December 1. The military has blamed many of the unsolved killings on the rebels. Most candidates slain were believed to have been Administra-tion-backed nominees.

The police later revealed the death of a nineteenth candidate.

They said Inocencio Feras, aged 55, an Opposition mayoral candidate in the Mindanao town of Roxas, was shot dead by a lone gunman, who escaped.