MANILA, Philippines (AP) – The Latest on 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 local):
11 a.m.
Three of five presidential candidates – former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, Vice President Jejomar Binay and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago – cast their vote early, lining up with common folk and shaking hands of well-wishers.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who has 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 on Monday afternoon.
Another candidate who has fared strongly in the voter-preference polls, Sen. Grace Poe, plans 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.
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8 a.m.
Gunmen have shot to death seven men and wounded another in Rosario town in Cavite province near Manila a few hours before voting centers opened in the Philippine presidential election.
Police are investigating if the pre-dawn attack Monday is related to the elections.
Police say the victims, mostly Muslim street vendors, were forced to alight from their van on a main road by the gunmen, who then opened fire with assault rifles. Another companion of the victims was wounded and brought 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.