Photographs: The elections in Compostela Valley

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: Teachers dutifully prepare for the counting of votes in precincts in Cabinuangan Elementary School in New Bataan. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: Mercy Bonsolto, campaign coordinator of opposition mayoralty candidate Shiela Cualing-Soriano, survived an ambush attempt. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: A bullet hole in car that Bonsolto and her companions rode in when they were ambushed. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Tagum City, May 14, 2007: A streamer made of plastic sack that was used to brand progressive partylists as communist fronts is discovered by international observers along the national highway in Tagum City, Davao del Norte. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: Election officers failed to notice this calendar of Lakas local candidates posted along the corridors of the precincts in Kingking Elementary School in Pantukan. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: A voter’s name is deleted from the voter’s list without proper authorization by election officers in this precinct in Kingking Elementary School in Pantukan, Compostela Valley. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: Voters cast their votes in Kingking Elementary School in Pantukan, Compostela Valley. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: A checkpoint by the Philippine National Police Regional Mobile Group in Mabini, Compostela Valley. “It’s not usual for us to see men with arms on the streets,” says a delegate of the People’s International Observers Mission that was monitoring the elections in the province. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: Philippine army soldiers check on passengers in Montevista, Compostela Valley. “It’s as if we’re going to a place where the President is present,” observes one foreign delegate of the International Observers Mission that was observing the elections in the province. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: A checkpoint by the Philippine National Police Regional Mobile Group in Mabini, Compostela Valley. “It’s not usual for us to see men with arms on the streets,” says a delegate of the People’s International Observers Mission that was monitoring the elections in the province. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 15, 2007: Belen Galleto, a local candidate in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, was targetted by the military’s red-baiting propaganda because of her being an Anakpawis party list leader. She is is shown here talking with Prof. Gill Boehringer of the People’s International Observers Mission. (davaotoday.com photo by Tyrone Velez)

Compostela Valley, May 15, 2007: International observers talk with Pantukan mayoral candidate Juan Sarenas (right), who had been tagged by the military as a NPA supporter for his endorsment of the Anakpawis partylist group. (davaotoday.com photo by Tyrone Velez)

Compostela Valley, May 14, 2007: Elias Dias, an elder church worker in King King, Pantukan, narrates how the military tried to recruit him and his neighbors to join the barangay defense system. This new scheme will have the residents patrolling the barangays at night, he says. Membership is mandatory and without compensation. “We can’t refuse them, because that’s the law of the military,” he said. (davaotoday.com photo by Tyrone Velez)

Compostela Valley, May 15, 2007: Chaos. International observers monitoring the municipal canvassing of elections returns in the
municipal hall in Pantukan, Compostela Valley. An observer notes that even “unofficial personnel” can enter the canvassing area “with easy acess” to the tallying. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 15, 2007: Sealed? A canvasser holding a sealed election return. “Seals are easily peeled off without damaging the envelope. How would you know they were not replaced?” asked an international observer. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Compostela Valley, May 15, 2007: Members of the International Observers Mission take notes on their observations on the conduct of municipal canvasing in Pantukan, Compostela Valley. “This is the most complicated, most interesting, most concerning process of elections,” says one of the delegate. (davaotoday.com photo by Tyrone Velez)

Compostela Valley, May 15, 2007: Soldiers pitched their camp in a barangay hall of Bongabong in the municipality of Pantukan, Compostela Valley Province. Seven of 13 barangays in Pantukan have soldiers camping in halls and daycare centers. (davaotoday.com photo by Cheryll Fiel)

Professor Gill Boehringer, a delegate from Australia, showed to the media during a presscon conference a streamer made out of sack
that they found on the streets of Tagum City, en route to the Compostela Valley. Written on the streamers are accusations that the five progressive partylists groups are fronts of the NPA. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)

Shadi Gilani,a delegate from the Netherlands. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)

Pastor Amancio Benigian, convenor of the People’s Net (People’s Action Network Against Fraud and Violence) who joined the mission. (davaotoday.com photo by Barry Ohaylan)