Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 2) — The longstanding political unease in the autonomous region in Mindanao that marred the recent village and youth polls will serve as a prelude to a more intense 2025 midterm elections, a conflict watchdog predicted.
The Council for Climate and Conflict Action Asia (CCCA) said the 2023 Barangay and Sanguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) was the \”bloodiest election\” in the region, having 72 incidents of violence, 21 deaths, 36 injuries, and about 6,000 people displaced due to political unrest.
\”If it is going to be bloody this time during the barangay, you can expect how much more it will be violent come 2025,\” CCCA trustee Francisco Lara said in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Final Word on Wednesday.
In a two-part plebiscite held on Jan. 21 and Feb. 6, 2019, the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) replaced the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with the ratification of its basic law, the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).
Republic Act No. 11054 or the BOL was signed by former president Rodrigo Duterte in July 2018.
Lara said the BSKE held last Oct. 30 is the most intense recorded in the history of both BARMM and the ARMM.
He added that they have been warning the public for a couple of months on the looming violent election as incidents started as early as six months before the BSKE.
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The Philippine National Police on Oct. 22 said an additional 800 personnel were deployed in Bangsamoro to monitor poll hotspots, yet Lara said it was not enough to thwart violence.
\”No one made enough preparations to head off that violence despite the fact that they knew that was going to happen,\” he said, citing that data on political violence was shared with law enforcers ahead of the BSKE.
\”It’s strange… the places where the eruption of violence happened were places that the government knew were already hotspots even in previous elections,\” he added.
