Gangland

“Election-related killings are nothing new in this country.

I didn’t know Alex Tubigan was a politician until a common friend gave me a tap to introduce him as the vice mayor of Trece Martires in Cavite.

I used to see Tubigan among the jean-clad, nameless faces who hanged out in the legendary music bar May-ric’s/ Sazi’s along Espana Boulevard, where our monthly 80’s music concert series thrived for nearly two decades since this rubbernecker co-founded it with musician-entrepreneur Sazi Cozino and Richard Tan, the late manager of bands The Youth, The Teeth and Feet Like Fins, in 1995.

He loved new wave music, but beer not much. What impressed this rubbernecker, however, was that he had no bodyguards.

But he lived a double life, like we all do.

While dabbling in politics, he was deep into music and often ran, sung and danced incognito with fellow music enthusiasts he did not know personally, too.

Tubigan’s murder last week seemed like another of those common drug-related killings until our common friend reminded this rubbernecker anew who Tubigan was.

He was not into drugs. His death, police say, could have been motivated by politics.

The coming elections are sending a bad whiff with the recent spate of killings of politicians.

Election-related killings are nothing new in this country. Politically-motivated murders are common since Filipinos were allowed to vote.

But they are hurting government’s tough projection against crime. This early in the pre-campaigns, not a few are predicting more deaths before the election fever heats up further at the turn of the year.

In last May’s Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan polls, 35 killings were reported with 27 wounded in 47 violent incidents leading up to the elections.

The Philippine National Police hailed it was lower than the numbers logged in the 2013 elections where nearly 60 violent poll-related incidents were logged, resulting in deaths of more than a hundred victims.

The 2019 mid-term elections are still on May 13, a Monday.

But rivalries are heating up in the cities and provinces that Tubigan’s and other murders are piling the cases now handled by the PNP.

Despite the PNP’s drive to rid the country of illegally-owned guns, it still reports organized crime and gun-for-hire groups are in existence.

A recent report even exposed a policeman living a double life as gun-for-hire.

And so the cycle of murder continues as government positions, which political rivals and family dynasties are seeking to perpetuate as their primary sources of income and wealth, remain as factor to the spate of violence five to six generations of Filipinos have witnessed since the murder of Andres Bonifacio in a mountain fringe in Cavite.

There would be more to be tabbed along Tubigan’s number for sure.