MANILA: The Philippines military went on alert as voters prepared for national elections on Monday following a blood-soaked campaign season that saw more than 110 people killed.

Thousands of soldiers joined police already guarding polling stations to “stop election violence and move forcefully against those using threats and intimidation for partisan ends,” a presidential statement said.

President Gloria Arroyo is hoping to keep a majority in the House of Representatives and to win most of the 12 seats being contested in the 24-member Senate to ensure a smooth last three years of her rule.

As well as electing senators, some 45 million voters will elect congressmen to the 275-seat House of Representatives in addition to governors, mayors, and provincial and municipal or city councils throughout the Southeast Asian archipelago.

With police and military already stretched around the country, police have warned that Communist guerillas are planning a major offensive against government and civilian targets in a bid to disrupt Monday's poll.

Police intelligence head Alejandro Lapinid said information gathered from Philippine National Police field units said the attacks are scheduled to start Monday and will be stepped up throughout the week.

Speaking on local radio Lapinid said targets include government installations, communication facilities and power plants, but did not elaborate.

He said there are seven regions known as communist hotspots, including Northern and Central Luzon, Mindoro, Nueva Ecija, Bohol, Pampanga and Western and Central Mindanao.

About 1,000 police and soldiers are guarding the northern province of Abra, where a policeman was killed by suspected guns for hire in the town of Danglas late Saturday to add to months of deadly political violence that claimed the life of Abra legislator Luis Bersamin in December.

“It is heating up. This is the end game between now and tomorrow at election time,” said Senior Superintendent Villamor Bumanglag, chief of a police taskforce that will field seven officers for every polling station in the province on election day.“There have been a lot of reports of armed groups moving in remote areas and we are checking on them,” he said.

While the presidency is not at stake, analysts said the result would have a major bearing on efforts by the opposition to unseat Arroyo over allegations she cheated to win the May 2004 ballot. She denies the allegations.

Pro-Arroyo parties are expected to keep a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives, which would ensure that no further impeachment moves against her would succeed.

However, an opposition-controlled Senate would make it harder for Arroyo to pursue an economic reform agenda which over the past three years has seen Congress pass a set of tax bills shoring up the government's finances.

The election has been under intense foreign scrutiny amid a wave of murders of hundreds of supporters of fringe leftist parties since Arroyo came to power in 2001, some of which the military says are fronts for communist guerrillas.

Police put the official death toll from the three-month campaign period at 113 throughout the country, where vote-buying and electoral violence are commonplace.

Police and military units were deployed in several districts wracked by bloodshed in the run-up to the vote, and were also drafted in to transport ballot boxes and escort foreign observers to far-flung areas.

Aside from foreign observers accredited by the government, an independent team of 25 from 10 countries said it would monitor 13 areas that have been hit by violence and allegations of fraud.

The team is composed of journalists, academics and others from countries including Japan, Britain, Australia, South Korea and the United States.

In addition to the legislative seats, some 17,000 local posts are up for grabs in the election in the Philippines.

Local election officials in many isolated towns said they were still waiting for election materials Sunday, including indelible ink to mark voters and prevent multiple attempts to cast ballots.

Candidates disappeared from public view and print and broadcast media stopped airing political advertisements on Sunday, ahead of the opening of more than 295,000 polling stations on Monday morning.—AFP