Marcos-Duterte feud kicks off midterm election season in the Philippines

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.

Ms Duterte last week was impeached by Mr Marcos’ allies

for threatening to assassinate him and misusing millions worth of public funds.

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 while the rest will be contested 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 Mr 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 Ms Duterte’s alleged offences. Only a conviction by a two-third vote of the Senate would officially remove Ms Duterte from her post.

Otherwise, she would survive the ouster attempt, and her senator allies can derail Mr 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 Mr Marcos’ Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas (Alliance for a New Philippines) slate. These include the President’s sister Imee Marcos, who is an incumbent senator, and boxing legend-turned-senator Manny Pacquiao.

The candidates held a grand rally on the afternoon of Feb 11 in the northern city of Laoag, capital of Ilocos Norte province, the bailiwick of Mr Marcos.

While their speeches focused on campaign promises, it was the President himself who came out swinging against the Duterte-backed names and the controversies that hounded the administration of his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, father of the Vice-President.

Mr Marcos claimed that none of the Alyansa candidates was involved in the bloody drug war waged by Mr Duterte, where thousands of drug suspects were killed in police operations and vigilante-style during his anti-drugs crackdown launched in 2016.

Mr Marcos also said no Alyansa candidates were involved in alleged misspending of pandemic funds during the Covid-19 crisis, nor did any back Mr Duterte’s pivot to China. He added that none supported the now-banned online casino industry that has been linked to organised crime.

But this is not entirely true, as some veteran politicians on Alyansa’s slate used to be allies of Mr Duterte and once staunchly defended his controversial policies.

“No Filipino wants to go back to that kind of governance. That’s why you can be sure that when our candidates are elected to the Senate, and they start their work, you can expect that they will not participate in these kinds of policies that we have left behind and do not want to return to,” said Mr Marcos, earning him resounding cheers from the crowd.

On Ms 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 Ms 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),” Mr 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 Ms Duterte’s impeachment to get sympathy votes and attack Mr Marcos on the campaign trail.

In contrast, Prof Aguirre said the President can use existing government social services to promote his endorsed candidates. Mr 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... (which) will be, ‘Elect these people to save democracy’,” Prof Aguirre said.

“For the (Marcos) administration side, it will be less talk. But you’ll see a pattern of them aggressively pushing for projects on the ground,” 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,” Mr Tulfo said.

The Duterte-allied PDP-Laban 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 Mr Marcos reportedly “rewarded” lawmakers who committed to impeach Ms 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 the 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, Mr Manhit said.

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” Mr 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,” Mr Manhit said. “So if candidates claim or attach their names to these programmes, there’s nothing we can do.”

But he said the Marcos-Duterte war is not the sole factor influencing voters’ choice on election day. He cited surveys in recent weeks showing Filipinos still consider bread-and-butter issues, such as 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,” Mr Manhit said.

Opposition parties that are critical of both Mr Marcos and Ms 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, Mr 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.”