Arroyo urges unity after violent elections

Arroyo urges unity after violent elections

MANILA (AP): With administration candidates slightly leading
exit polls and very early counts, President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo called for national unity on Tuesday after deadly,
divisive local and congressional elections.

"Let's be united again. It's time for healing," Arroyo said, a
day after elections seen as a power struggle between her and the
man she replaced and helped oust, jailed former President Joseph
Estrada.

An exit poll by Social Weather Stations pollsters released
late on Tuesday showed Arroyo's candidates could grab eight of
the 13 key Senate seats, with four going to opposition and the
other to an independent.

But opposition senators, according to the survey of 5,446
voters with a margin of error of 1.5 percent, could include
Estrada's wife, Loi Ejercito, a moderate opposition senator and
two men Arroyo accuses of plotting to violently oust her.

Asked if "healing" could include those two, former national
police chief Panfilo Lacson and Sen. Gregorio Honasan, running
for re-election, Arroyo said she would "pray about it."

Arroyo said Honasan and Lacson instigated violence on May 1
when 50,000 Estrada supporters, angered by his April 25 arrest on
corruption charges, stormed the presidential palace. At least six
died and more than 100 were wounded as security forces fought
them off.

Tuesday morning, gunmen killed a policeman during a ballot box
heist and suspected rebels abducted a mayoral candidate as
officials continued the plodding process of gathering and
counting 30 million ballots, many of them from jungle villages
and remote mountain towns on the Philippines' 7,107 islands.

Gunfights, arson at polling stations and attacks on rallies
during and after Monday's vote brought political killings to 73
since campaigning began in January for 17,600 local, provincial
and congressional posts. No conclusive results are expected for
days.

Assailants who killed a policeman with automatic rifles on
Tuesday made off with completed ballots from two precincts in
Santa Ana town, in the Philippines' extreme north, police said.

Since the vote, armed men burned ballot boxes in two central
Philippine towns and attackers firing from a motorboat injured
three people in a rally in a coastal municipality. Supporters of
rival candidates exchanged gunfire in more than a dozen villages
and towns from north to south.

Police Supt. Rojillo Montijo said suspected communist rebels
abducted Mayor Zemaida Doria, who had run for re-election in
Mayorja town, some 600 kilometers southeast of Manila.

Montijo said the New People's Army, which is fighting to
install Marxism and claims to serve as vigilantes against crime
in some rural areas, had accused Doria of corruption. Besides
violence, missing ballot boxes and incomplete voter lists plagued
parts of the country. Turnout was estimated at 85 percent of the
36.1 million voters.

An unofficial count by the private National Citizens Movement
for Free Elections, with less than 2 percent of votes counted,
also showed eight administration candidates winning.

Archbishop Antonio Quevedo, of the Catholic Bishops Conference
of the Philippines, called on authorities to consider election
reform to counter violence and greater computerization to ensure
fairness.

"I think there is a need to reevaluate the elections, why
there is so much elections violence and elections cheating,"
Quevedo said.

He also asked the government to treat Estrada with "more
dignity" and suggested the former leader should be detained in
his suburban Manila mansion instead of his remote detention
center south of the capital.

Rival camps insisted they did well in the crucial race for 13
of the 24 Senate seats being filled in the elections held just
four months after Estrada fled the presidential palace amid
massive street protests.

Arroyo needs a strong showing for a credibility boost
following the prolonged crisis over corruption allegations
against Estrada that severely strained the nation's political
system.

Estrada has sought from jail to rally support for opposition
figures in hopes that gains by his allies, including his wife,
Loi Ejercito, will bolster his claim that he was ousted
illegally.

Shares on the Philippine Stock Exchange fell 1.8 percent
Tuesday amid the scattered violence and the expected long wait
for elections results. The peso inched ahead against the U.S.
dollar, closing at 50.18 to the dollar compared with 50.30 at the
close on Friday.

Some analysts were surprised at the market's lackluster start,
after predicting stocks and the peso would rise following
elections.

Estrada and his son Jinggoy, both jailed on plunder charges,
voted from hospital where they are being treated for minor
illnesses developed in detention.

Estrada, accused of pocketing US$82 million in payoffs while
in office, has claimed he is still the legitimate leader.