The Philippines' Commission on Elections said the contest will be one the most heated for many years. But Comelec also said violence will likely never be far away as campaigning gets under way for the May 10 election.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said in the past people get over-excited during campaigning and this year should be no different. But there is the added issue of tighter balloting procedures that could frustrate the attempts by some local candidates to rig voting. They may instead resort to violence to persuade voters since cheating would be almost impossible.

"There's that remote and perverse possibility that automation might actually contribute to a slight increase in election violence," Jimenez said in a report in The Manila Times. The tendency has been to "pre-empt the elections by just ... killing your opponent or, at least, hurting them or whatever."

Apart from violence, Comelec expects it to be a dirty fight with candidates violating most rules as they have been doing even before the official period started, the Times report noted.

A total of 222 seats are up in the House of Representatives as well as 80 seats for governors and 80 for vice governors at provincial level. Candidates will fight over another nearly 3,000 elected positions, from provincial board member to city mayor and local councilor.

The Philippine National Police are taking precautions already to be ready for violence and ordered six regions to be placed on "full-alert" status. One of those areas is the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao an area noted for violence related to local politics.

Police spokesman Leonardo Espina said at a news conference that the main purpose of the order was to "further avert violent election-related incidents and to double the efforts against private armed groups." Police will be doing many more roadside checkpoints, he said.

The police statement come as a local court ordered the arrest of almost 200 people implicated in the massacre of 57 people, including at least 30 journalists, on the Philippines southern-most island of Mindanao. The mass roadside killing last November was the worst such violence in Filipino history. It appears to be a clan power struggle centered on local elections in Maguindanao province within the autonomous Muslim region.

The court in Quezon that is trying several clan members has issued arrest warrants for 197 suspects, among them clan patriarch Andal Ampatuan Sr., who is also the governor of Maguindanao, and his sons and other clan members, television reports said.

Andal Ampatuan Sr. is under military custody in the southern port city of General Santos, while his son Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of the Muslim autonomous region, and others are locked up in a police jail.

Another of his sons and the key suspect in the massacre, Andal Ampatuan Jr., the mayor of Datu Unsay town in Maguindanao, is being held by the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila.

The clan has continually denied involvement in the killings and blames Muslim rebels for the carnage. The allegation is strongly denied by the local Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a separatist group that has signed a cease-fire with the national government in Manila.

Police are looking for 142 suspects, including another 18 Ampatuan family members, wanted in connection in the slayings.

On the day of the killings, police found the bodies, along with several vehicles in which they were traveling, buried in a deep roadside grave near the site of the shootings. The dead had been on their way to the elections office in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao to register their candidate, Toto Mangudadatu, who was to stand against members of the Ampatuan clan.

Mangudadatu had decided that day not to go with the group.

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