MANILA, Philippines (AP) Developments on Monday, May 9, about the presidential election in the Philippines, where Rodrigo Duterte, the mayor of southern Davao city, has led in voter-preference surveys, with a bold promise to wipe out crime and corruption in three to six months if he wins (all times Philippine Time Zone).
- 11:30 a.m.
Detained former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who was running for re-election as a member of the House of Representatives, voted in her northern home province of Pampanga after a court allowed her to temporarily leave hospital detention.
Wearing a neck brace and guarded by police, Arroyo waved at other voters as she walked into a voting center in Pampanga’s Lubao town, accompanied by her husband.
Arroyo, 69, who suffers from a neck ailment, finished her tumultuous nine-year term in 2010. Since then, she was separately charged with vote fraud and in another corruption case and was eventually detained.
She accused her successor, Benigno Aquino III, of pursuing a political vendetta. Aquino was elected with a landslide margin on a promise to rid the Philippines of corruption and vowed to prosecute Arroyo and her inner circle, blaming them for stealing money for personal gain and for a culture of impunity in which corrupt practices flourished. Arroyo denied any wrongdoing.
- 11:00 a.m.
Three of five presidential candidates — former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago — cast their votes early, lining up with common folk and shaking hands of well-wishers.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who led in pre-poll surveys and led a huge final rally in Manila that police estimated drew a crowd of 300,000, was expected to vote in his southern port city of Davao.
Another candidate who fared strongly in the voter-preference polls, Sen. Grace Poe, planned to drop by the tomb of her adoptive father, action movie star Fernando Poe, before voting in the capital.
Poe was abandoned as a newborn in a church then adopted by Poe and his wife, who is also a movie star. Although a political neophyte, she used her celebrity name as an effective springboard into Philippine politics.
- 8:00 a.m.
Gunmen shot seven men to death and wounded another in Rosario town in Cavite province near Manila a few hours before voting centers opened in the Philippine presidential election.
Police investigated whether the pre-dawn attack was related to the election.
Police said the victims, mostly Muslim street vendors, were forced out of their van on a main road by the gunmen, who then opened fire with assault rifles. Another companion of the victims was wounded and taken to a hospital, Rosario police chief Rommel Javier said by telephone.
If the brazen killings were related to the polls, they would be an addition to 15 deaths already attributed by the police to elections violence.
Such violence, including allegations of cheating, and attacks on voting centers and political headquarters of candidates, have marred elections in the past, especially among rival local politicians in the provinces.
