Comelec awaits signing of additional peace covenants
Provincial Election Supervisor Atty. Elizabeth Doronila urged candidates in areas with intense political rivalry to sign peace covenants to ensure a peaceful and orderly elections.
Doronila cited the examples given by the mayoralty candidates in the towns of Estancia, Banate and Lambunao who have already signed peace covenants.
The hotly contested towns of Janiuay, Lemery, Dumangas, Barotac Nuevo, Oton and San Joaquin are also expected to follow suit.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) had been pushing for candidates in areas considered as election areas of concern to sign a peace covenant in order to ensure peaceful, orderly and honest elections.
The commission focuses more on areas with intense political rivalry, having presence of insurgents, having incidents of violence or ballot snatching and history of political harassment in previous elections.
Doronila said, in the town of Estancia incumbent Mayor Rene Cordero and challenger retired police general Restituto Mosqueda have already signed a peace covenant yesterday. Cordero is running under the Liberal Party while Mosqueda is with the Lakas-CMD.
The town of Estancia is placed in the priority list of the Philippine National Police and the Comelec because of the intense political rivalry among the mayoralty candidates. There were already several incidents involving the two aspirants and their supporters.
Lambunao mayoralty candidates former Board Member Vicente Ramirez, retired police general Reynor Gonzalez and Jose Magno, an independent candidate, also signed a peace covenant last April 11 to signify their intention to make the elections in their town as peaceful and credible.
Doronila added that mayoralty candidates in the town of Banate have already signed a peace covenant. They are incumbent Mayor Carlos Cabangal of KAMPI and Rustum Larawan of Lakas-CMD. They signed the peace covenant in the presence of the town's chief of police and municipal election officer.
The Comelec is still awaiting word from the municipal election officers and chiefs of police of the towns of Janiuay, Lemery, Dumangas, Barotac Nuevo, Oton and san Joaquin on when are they going to sign their peace covenants.
The mayoralty candidates in the municipality of Janiuay are incumbent mayor Bienvinido Margarico of Lakas-CMD and Frankie Locsin of Liberal party. Margarico was a former board member before he was elected as the town mayor while Locsin was also the town's former mayor.
In Lemery, it is a four-cornered fight among Mildred Chavez of KAMPI, Eduardo Eligio of Liberal Party, Rodolfo Sepanton of Lakas-CMD and Oscar Villegas of Liberal Party. The regional office of the Comelec has yet to receive official word from their municipal election officer and chief of police on when these four candidates are going to sign a peace covenant.
In the town of Dumangas, candidates Julito Diasnes Jr. of KAMPI and Ronaldo Golez of Lakas-CMD are running for the mayoral post. There are also candidates for mayor in Barotac Nuevo. They are Antonio Belluga of KAMPI and Diana Biron of Lakas-CMD.
In the southern part of Iloilo, the Comelec is also waiting on when Oton mayoral candidates Vicente Flores Jr. Lakas-CMD and Victorio Frenie Escanlar, an independent candidate, to sign the peace agreement.
The Comelec is also waiting on whether San Joaquin incumbent Mayor Ninfa Garin of Lakas-CMD and and his brother Sebastian Serag of Liberal Party will sign a peace covenant. Both, siblings have been hurling serious accusations against each other.