What’s At Stake? Here Are Some Key Facts About The Major Issues, The Leading Candidates And 2022 Election Concerns

More than three decades after a largely peaceful “people power” revolt overthrew Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, his son and namesake has emerged as the top contender in the presidential election on Monday, May 9, based on most voter-preference surveys.

Here are some key facts about the major issues, the leading candidates and election concerns:

What’s at stake?

If Ferdinand Marcos Jr. triumphs, it will be a stunning reversal of the 1986 pro-democracy uprising that booted his father out of office into global infamy. Many Filipinos remember the human rights atrocities and plunder that unfolded under his dictatorship and would likely push back against any perceived threat to democracy or Marcos Jr.’s attempt to recover his family’s assets that were seized by the government as ill-gotten wealth.

The winner stands to inherit immense problems, including an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic, deeper poverty and unemployment, hyperinflation due to skyrocketing oil prices, decades-old insurgencies and inflamed political divisions.

Outgoing populist leader Rodrigo Duterte’s successor also likely faces calls to prosecute him for his bloody crackdown on illegal drugs that has left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead and alarmed the international community. The International Criminal Court has been investigating the killings as a possible crime against humanity.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

A former provincial governor, congressman and senator, the 64-year-old son of the late dictator is waging the most impressive attempt yet of the Marcos family to recapture the presidency. His mother, Imelda Marcos, twice unsuccessfully attempted to retake the seat of power after returning with her children to the Philippines from exile in the United States, where her husband died in 1989.

Marcos Jr. has defended his father’s legacy and steadfastly refuses to apologize for and acknowledge the atrocities and plunder during the dictatorship. Married to a lawyer, with whom he has three sons, he has stayed away from controversies, including a past tax conviction and the Marcos family’s refusal to pay a huge estate tax. Throughout his campaign, he tenaciously stuck to a battle cry of national unity. He denies accusations that he financed a yearslong social media campaign that harnessed online trolls to smear opponents and whitewash the Marcos family’s checkered history, daring critics to “show me one.”

Leni Robredo

As an economics student at the state-run University of the Philippines in the 1980s, Leni Robredo joined the massive protests that led to the ouster of the elder Marcos. The 57-year-old also took up law and successfully ran for a seat in the House of Representatives in 2013 in her first foray into politics after her husband, a respected politician, died in a plane crash in 2012. She defeated Marcos Jr. in the 2016 vice presidential race with a narrow margin in their first electoral faceoff. Her advocacies center on defending human rights and empowering the poor partly by teaching them their legal rights.

The daughter of a trial court judge, Robredo does not belong to any of the prominent families that have dominated Philippine politics for generations, and is running as an independent propped by a network of campaign volunteers. As the opposition vice president, who was separately elected from Duterte, she condemned the killings of mostly poor drug suspects as part of his crackdown, angering the brash-talking leader and straining their ties for years. The mother of three has been cited for her integrity and a lifestyle that shuns the trappings of power — she used to regularly travel alone by bus to her home province as a congresswoman.

Other contenders

Eight other presidential aspirants have lagged far behind in pre-elections surveys, including Manny Pacquiao, the 43-year-old former boxing star, who vowed to build houses for the poor and lock up corrupt politicians in a “mega-prison.” Manila Mayor Isko Moreno, a 47-year-old former TV heartthrob, banked on his rags-to-power life story and public awe over his massive cleanup of the capital. Sen. Panfilo Lacson, a 73-year-old former national police chief, has promised to continue exploiting his investigative skills to expose major government corruption.

Securing the vote

Aside from the presidency, more than 18,000 government posts will be contested in the elections, including half of the 24-member Senate, more than 300 seats in the House of Representatives, as well as provincial and local offices across the archipelago of more than 109 million Filipinos. About 67 million have registered to cast their ballot during the 13-hour voting starting at 6 a.m., an hour longer than the midterm elections in 2019 to compensate for slower queues due to social distancing and other coronavirus safeguards.

Thousands of police and military personnel have been deployed given longstanding risks posed by communist and Muslim rebels and a history of often bloody family and political rivalries in rural areas. In 2009, gunmen deployed by the family of southern Maguindanao province’s then-governor massacred 58 people, including 32 journalists, in an attack on an election convoy that shocked the world.

Pacquiao ready to accept people’s verdict

After three months of a grueling campaign, Pacquiao said he is ready to accept the people’s verdict today.

Pacquiao emphasized that he has already experienced setbacks in his career, adding that he is ready for the decision of the majority of the people.

The global boxing icon-turned-billionaire politician has no regrets running for president, saying he has presented himself as an option for the voters, especially the poor.

“I made the impoverished understand our true intention,” he said in Filipino in an interview with reporters in General Santos City last Saturday night, May 7.

Pacquiao ended his campaign with a miting de avance in his hometown where he made a final pitch for the top post in the country.

He urged voters to consider him as their next president as he is aware of the problems facing the country, having grown up in poverty.

Pacquiao also warned voters of dire consequences if they will sell their votes to politicians.

“Will you sell your future within six years for just P1,000 or P500?” he asked.

The senator said politicians who engage in vote-buying would recoup their expenses once they are in power.

Dark horse

As 80 percent of the country’s 67 million Filipino voters flock to their precincts today, the team of Pacquiao – a so-called dark horse among all presidential wannabes – is still hoping that pollsters will be proved wrong.

No less than the eight-division world-boxing champion is optimistic with the turnout in every rally they had held across the country, where multitudes from the classes D and E expressed their preference for the guy with a classic rags-to-riches story.

“My voters are mostly from the D and E class,” the Promdi standard-bearer kept telling journalists, in effect refuting all pollsters in pre-election surveys who unanimously rate Marcos Jr. as the frontrunner, and where he ranked only third.

A vast majority of the country’s 110-million population comprise the D and E classes, with barely five or 10 percent of them belonging to the elite and the upper middle-class, which also comprise 85 percent of the government’s tax base – the fixed income earners.

At the very least, Pacquiao estimated that he could muster on the average 10 million votes easily based on the list he gave to Filipinos whom he promised with housing program, even if he fails to make it to Malacañang this June 30, since he has been doing this decades back.

As per regular Commission on Elections (Comelec) statistics, voter turnout every presidential election held every six years always yields 80 percent of the total number of voters, which means Filipinos always want to have a say on whom they want their next president to be.

“This is the fight of Manny Pacquiao, and I have always repeated this that this will be a revolution where the poor will finally have a voice in our government, so that they will be given due importance,” the senator told reporters at a briefing in Borongan, Eastern Samar.

“It is now time for the poor to be victorious. This is a revolution of each Filipino for them to better their lives. Let us put an end to abuses. Because it is true that in our country, only those who are in position become rich,” he added.

Moreno: No regrets leaving city hall

For his part, Moreno said he has no regrets ending his first term as mayor of Manila to seek the country’s highest post.

In Facebook Live after his miting de avance in Tondo Saturday night, Moreno said he was grateful that he got to know the country’s plight especially in far-flung areas.

Moreno will cast his vote at the Magat Salamat Elementary School in Tondo, where he grew up, according to his campaign team.

“I’m really proud and happy with my decision to run for president. You know why? Because I got to know the real situation, especially in the provinces,” Moreno said in Filipino in describing his campaign trail.

He thanked his team of supporters and volunteers who accompanied him during the 90-day campaign period.

“I was awakened to the need for a fast-acting government,” he said in Filipino, referring to his campaign slogan “Bilis Kilos.”

During his miting de avance in Moriones, Tondo Saturday night, Moreno took a jab at Marcos Jr. for being out of touch with reality, saying the latter grew up rich. He also criticized Robredo and her supporters for allegedly bullying him to withdraw from the race.

‘Vote for Lacson, Sotto is for certainty in policies’

The country‘s political and economic stability will be ensured if voters carry the presidential tandem of Lacson and Senate President Vicente Sotto III to victory, senatorial aspirant Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol said over the weekend.

Piñol, President Duterte‘s former agriculture chief, vouched for Lacson and Sotto as incorruptible candidates who can provide certainty in policies, which investors and the economic sector require to make long-term plans.

Addressing the tandem’s miting de avance in Carmona, Cavite last Saturday, he urged Filipinos not to waste the opportunity to be led by a good and honest leader in Lacson, who can change the direction of the country.

If he doesn‘t win as our president, the Filipino people will be missing a golden opportunity of changing the future of this country, Piñol said in a mix of English and Filipino.

Piñol cited how Lacson and Sotto support his proposed agricultural policies such as increasing food production, establishing food terminals nationwide, and procuring as much as half of farmers’ produce.

He said that under such leadership, the Philippines would be like Israel, which considers food security as important as national security.

“I pray that on May 9 the light of wisdom will shine upon us and we will realize that to change this country, we have to elect a rightful leader and that leader is Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson,” he said.

He also took the opportunity to thank everyone, particularly the farmers and fisheries sectors nationwide, who keep supporting his senatorial bid.

Piñol‘s campaign had him distributing 600,000 bamboo propagules instead of scattering tarpaulins of his face nationwide, saying the bamboo seedlings had spread would well outlive all other campaign materials.

Also in attendance at the miting de avance were senatorial candidates Dr. Minguita Padilla, former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Guillermo Eleazar, and former senators Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito and Gringo Honasan.

Meanwhile, Sotto said that after voting this morning in Quezon City, he is going straight to work in the Senate.

As Senate president, he must be present to receive the certificates of canvass (COCs) and election returns (ERs) starting tonight after polling precincts close at 7 p.m.

“After voting on Monday, I’ll go to work. I’m the Senate President so they (Comelec) have to turn over to me… certain documents in the afternoon. So it’s still work for me,” Sotto told reporters in Calauan, Laguna on Saturday.

He said he will also be meeting with House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco in connection with their joint canvassing of votes for president and vice president in a joint session of Congress.

Under the Constitution, the Senate is tasked to receive the COCs and ERs for president and vice president. Senate Secretary Myra Villarica earlier said the reception of the documents will be livestreamed for transparency.

Sotto’s presidential running mate, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said after voting in Imus, Cavite, he would catch up on sleep, something that he had little during the grueling 90-day campaign. – With Emmanuel Tupas, Delon Porcalla, Marc Jayson Cayabyab, Paolo Romero