Aquino Asks Public’s Help on Vote Fraud, Violence; Candidate Slain

President Corazon Aquino called on the public for help Sunday against election fraud and violence as a mayoral candidate was gunned down in his home and officials acknowledged irregularities in preparations for local elections across the nation next month.

Police said that Antonio Limos, mayoral candidate of Aquino’s governing coalition in the town of Rizal, in Nueva Ecija province, 70 miles north of Manila, was killed by a gunman who entered his house in mid-afternoon and shot him at close range.

Limos was the fourth candidate and the 11th person to die since campaigning began Dec. 1 to elect thousands of mayors and governors nationwide.

Aquino, in a weekly Sunday evening radio program, urged Filipinos to report to her personally any irregularities, such as a case that led to the sacking of an election commissioner and the removal of 25,000 names from poll lists in Olongapo, 50 miles northwest of Manila.

“Please let me know so that we can do something about this,” Aquino said. “We should try very hard to attain clean and peaceful elections.”

Aquino came to power after a popular revolt overturned the result of fraud-marred elections under former President Ferdinand E. Marcos in February, 1986.

Aquino’s bid to restore democratic institutions and clean up the political system faces its toughest challenge in the Jan. 18 elections, when more than 100,000 candidates will vie for 16,454 posts, often in remote areas long controlled by local warlords.

A massive discrepancy was exposed last week by Olongapo schoolteachers, who act as poll watchers. Officials subsequently struck 25,000 false names from the city’s voter list, replaced the names of 5,000 who had been disenfranchised and dismissed the local elections chairman.

National Commission on Elections Chairman Ramon Felipe Jr. said the case was “unprecedented in the country’s electoral history.”

In another incident, opposition candidates in the plush Manila suburb of Makati have charged that 14,000 voter registration cards are missing from the office of the local registrar.