Jobs to kill for

Accept the poll results, all candidates in the village and youth council elections were urged by various officials.

Acceptance should go without saying – but not in this country, where all sorts of underhanded election tactics are the norm rather than the exception.

This is also a country where there are no losers in elections, only winners and those who got cheated.

After the violence leading up to the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections on Oct. 30, with at least 19 BSKE-related murders officially confirmed by the Commission on Elections (a “relatively peaceful” vote, as described by the Comelec), security agencies must now contend with post-proclamation killings.

On Nov. 1, a winning candidate for barangay councilor in Poblacion 3, in Cotabato’s Midsayap town, was shot dead near the barangay center.

We’re not just sore losers, we’re armed and dangerous losers.

While police said the number of election-related incidents this year was higher than in the 2018 BSKE, the level of armed violence was reportedly lower. Maybe because the three-year tenure of the new set of officials has been abbreviated to just two by that party pooper Supreme Court, which ended the multiple term extensions that Congress and Malacañang kept giving to their grassroots political leaders.

Surely two years as a barangay official isn’t worth the prospect of at least two decades in prison for eliminating your rival through murder.

Maybe lawmakers should go the other way; instead of a term extension for their vote-buying operators at the grassroots, they can make the two-year term permanent for the BSKE. It could disincentivize murder, and might put more pressure on barangay officials eyeing reelection to serve their constituencies better.

OK… this seems like wishful thinking.

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Deadly violence is always much worse in local election contests in this country than in the national races. Probably because the local fights can be deeply personal. Police said that kagawad in Midsayap town was murdered by his own cousin.

Even clan wars spill over into politics, and the violence can be vicious. Clans, of course, aren’t the only ones that resort to murder.

The worst case of