A campaign worker distributing a flier on senatorial aspirants during election campaigning at a market in Manila on Feb 11. - AFP
MANILA: In crowded streets across the Philippines, catchy campaign jingles have started to blare from speakers placed on top of jeepneys passing through neighbourhoods filled with posters of smiling candidates.
But beyond the usual fanfare and frenzy at the start of the midterm election season on Feb 11, a deeper political war is brewing.
The once-vaunted alliance between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Vice-President Sara Duterte has crumbled. The Vice-President last week was impeached by the President’s allies for threatening to assassinate him and misusing millions worth of public funds.
And that political drama has turned the May 12 midterms, particularly the Senate race, into a high-stakes contest for control between the nation’s two most powerful dynastic clans.
Up for grabs are more than 18,000 seats nationwide in the polls held every three years.
Filipinos will vote for 12 out of 24 Senate seats, The rest will contest in the next midterm. There are also more than 300 congressmen and thousands of local officials in every province, city, and town contesting the election.
It would be crucial for Marcos to pack the Senate with more allies, as the Chamber is set to turn itself into an impeachment court that will conduct a trial likely in July on Duterte’s alleged offences. Only a conviction by a two-third vote of the Senate would officially remove Duterte from her post.
Otherwise, the Vice-President would survive the ouster attempt, and her senator allies can derail Marcos’ policy agenda in the last three years of his term, which ends in 2028.
The campaign period officially started on Feb 11 for the country’s bicameral Congress, including the senatorial bets and representatives of sectoral groups vying for 63 allotted seats in the House of Representatives. Local officials begin campaigning in March.
Candidates from well-entrenched political clans and public personalities are poised to win the coveted 12 Senate seats, pre-election surveys have showed so far.
A majority of those expected to win seats in the so-called “Magic 12” winners’ circle, according to surveys, are veteran politicians from Marcos’ Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas (Alliance for a New Philippines) slate. These include sister of the President and incumbent senator Imee Marcos and boxing legend-turned-senator Manny Pacquiao.
All are set to hold a grand rally on the afternoon of Feb 11 at the northern Philippine city of Laoag, capital of Ilocos Norte province, the bailiwick of the President. Marcos himself is speaking at the event.
On Duterte’s side, incumbent senators Bong Go and Ronald Dela Rosa from the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) are performing well in surveys too.
The pre-election polls indicate that more Marcos allies would win, which would not be good for Duterte’s political future. But surveys are only a snapshot of what voters want at the time they were interviewed, said political analyst Dindo Manhit of Manila-based think-tank Stratbase ADR Institute.
“A strong political machinery can deliver the votes beyond (what) the surveys (say),” Manhit told The Straits Times.
Battle of narratives and machinery
Expect the intensified Marcos-Duterte feud to shape campaign narratives and influence alliances in the next three months, political science assistant professor Arjan Aguirre of the Ateneo de Manila University told ST.
He said Duterte-allied candidates are likely to use the Vice-President’s impeachment to get sympathy votes and attack Marcos on the campaign trail.
In contrast, Prof Aguirre said the President can use existing government social services to promote his endorsed candidates. Marcos is set to appear during all the 21 grand rallies being organised for the Alyansa slate during the campaign period.
“The Duterte faction will be heavy on the messaging, heavy on the communications. I think the messaging will be, ‘elect these people to save democracy’,” Prof Aguirre said.
“For the administration side, it will be less talk. But you’ll see a pattern of them aggressively pushing for projects on the ground. The admin will pour as much as it can into their candidates’ campaign,” he added.
Alyansa candidate Erwin Tulfo, who represents anti-crime group ACT-CIS in the House and who has topped all pre-election senatorial surveys so far, said in a press conference on Feb 11 that the alliance’s slate will be focusing on its campaign promises.
“Filipinos are getting tired of the fight (between Marcos and Duterte). Alyansa’s plan is just to present ourselves and our advocacies,” Tulfo said.
The Duterte-allied PDP-Laban already said in a Feb 8 Facebook post that Filipinos should “choose wisely who they will vote for, especially in the Senate where the fate of V-P Sara will be decided”.
Rumours have spread in political circles that Marcos reportedly “rewarded” lawmakers who committed to impeach Duterte with hefty allocations for social welfare and infrastructure projects in their areas in the 2025 budget.
But he has denied this and has repeatedly distanced himself from Duterte’s impeachment.
Bread-and-butter issues still at core
Still, a proper implementation of government programmes during the campaign season would be to the advantage of any candidate backed by the administration, said Manhit.
Two surveys released on Feb 13 by local pollsters Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations, both commissioned by Stratbase, showed that up to 90 per cent of Filipinos consider as “very helpful” Marcos’ three conditional cash aid and short-term employment programmes for low-income earners and poor families.
“People don’t see anything bad about it. They see it as programmes that benefit them,” Manhit said. “So if candidates claim or attach their names to these programmes, there’s nothing we can do.”
But Manhit said the Marcos-Duterte war is not the sole factor influencing voters’ choice on election day. He cited surveys released in recent weeks showing Filipinos still consider bread-and-butter issues, like soaring prices of goods and joblessness, their top concerns.
“What is really driving the national elections are key socio-economic issues. How you present yourself as one that can help the electorate address these issues can shape how they’ll vote for you,” said Manhit.
Opposition parties that are critical of both Marcos and Duterte have fielded their own senatorial candidates too, but most are performing poorly in the surveys.
Only former senators Kiko Pangilinan and Bam Aquino have higher chances of winning, as they have been ranking just outside the Magic 12 in pre-election polls.
What can they do to stand out from their more popular well-funded opponents? Show the people that they are above the Marcos-Duterte fight, Manhit suggested.
“Stick to what you can deliver to the people in terms of how can you help address this for the people, like food security, improvement of the lives of people, how can we remove them from poverty. You don’t need to be part of that issue of Marcos and Duterte.” - The Straits Times/ANN
