DUMAGUETE CITY, (PNA) – Post-election tension continues to mount in Basay, the southernmost town of Negros Oriental, with already two fire incidents reported and a political supporter found dead in the past two days.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) provincial office deployed Friday morning to Basay a team of anti-partisan armed groups (PAGs) and troops from the Provincial Safety Company, along with agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), to help prevent violence from further erupting in that sleepy town, some 110 kilometers south of this capital city.

While police authorities, pending investigation, are declining to comment on whether these incidents are directly related to Monday’s automated polls, rival political candidates and groups in Basay are already accusing each other of perpetrating said criminal activities.

Around 1:30 a.m. Friday, a certain Nelson Balayo, 47, motorcycle-for-hire driver and resident of Labogon in Barangay Nagbo-alao, was found dead at the town’s oval with multiple hack and stab wounds, a police report said.

Initial police investigation disclosed that a vehicle transporting fish discovered Balayo’s body near his motorcycle at an unlit area at the oval. The victim’s wife positively identified Balayo and his motorcycle.
Balayo was allegedly a supporter of Lakas-Kampi-CMD mayoralty bet Dandilgust Abrio (Lakas-Kampi-CMD), who won in Monday’s election.

The Lakas-Kampi-CMD dominated the polls in Basay, winning the positions for mayor, vice mayor and six councilors with the two remaining council seats garnered by independent bets.

Meanwhile, two fire incidents were also reported in Basay on Thursday, a day after a commotion at the municipal hall on Wednesday took place over what losing candidates perceived to be irregularities in post-election proceedings.

At dawn Thursday, the house of Gregorio Sapipe, located in the town proper, was set on fire. Neighbors saw three unidentified male suspects who scampered away, police said.

The neighbors were able to put out the fire and only the door of the house was partly singed.
Sapipe, purportedly a supporter of Abrio, was not around at the time of the incident and his house was unoccupied.

On the same day, at around 9:30 in the evening, another fire of unknown origin razed a pre-school day care center inside the Utzurrum compound in the town proper.

Atty. Riodil Montebon, father of councilor-candidate Jose Manuel Montebon of the Liberal Party who was beaten in the election said the building, made of such light materials as coco-lumber and nipa roofing, was unoccupied but it was around 10 to 15 meters away from his wife’s ancestral home.

He said that he and his wife, Marietta, have been running this center, along with many other centers, under the Care Corner Ministry, for several years now.

Montebon said they suspected that the burning incident could be a retaliatory act or a warning after their announced plans of lodging an election protest, even though the police and fire authorities have yet to investigate if arson was the motive of the incident.

Montebon, who represents the LP in Basay, had announced earlier that they were considering filing an election protest after witnesses claimed that among alleged election-related anomalies, ballot boxes were allegedly tampered with prior to the conduct of the random manual audit.

The lawyer lamented that Basay has only one fireman and no fire truck, and thus, the Bayawan City Fire Department, about 20 minutes away, had to be called in to douse the fire.

As of press time, Provincial Election Supervistor Atty. Eddie Aba, who had left for Manila to deliver the Certificates of Canvass and Basay Election Officer Genaro Trumata could not be reached through their mobile phones for comment.

It was not immediately known whether the Commission on Elections (Comelec) or the PNP would press charges against Mayor Cañamaque, who allegedly kicked one of the ballot boxes at the lobby of the municipal hall Wednesday.

Cañamaque denied having kicked the ballot box but admitted to shoving it to confirm reports that it had already been allegedly opened ahead of the random manual audit.

The ballot box fell open and its contents, official ballots from clustered precincts of Nagbo-alao, were onto the box’s lid, said protesting candidates and witnesses.

Police authorities say the situation in Basay is still under control.

At the close of Monday’s elections, the Joint Security Control Center, composed of the Comelec, the PNP and the Philippine Army, said that not a single election-related violent incident was reported in the province.