Open season as campaigning begins in Philippines
Vice Presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is seen during the campaign kickoff held in Ilocos Norte on 09 February 2016. (Voltaire Domingo/NPPA IMAGES)
Official stumping season for the Philippines’ rowdy brand of national polls began in typical, colorful fashion Tuesday headlined by a fascinating cast of politicians pushing to lead one of Asia’s most free-wheeling democracies.
The pack of presidential hopefuls are Jejomar Binay, the country’s vice president currently fighting off accusations of corruption; Mar Roxas, the chosen successor to the current president with a perceived bland personality; Grace Poe, a popular senator but hounded by her foundling background; Rodrigo Duterte, an admitted womanizer, and potty mouthed crime-buster who has openly admitted favoring summary executions of petty criminals; and Miriam Defensor Santiago, a veteran senator and legal expert with a fiery tongue, but who trails in national surveys.
Poe, 47, who has been fighting off attempts to stop her from running on questions of her citizenship, said she would not wither amid the searing attacks by her opponents.
“Our countrymen or fellow Filipinos really want somebody who is a fighter, especially if she is right,” Poe said, in Filipino.
“They don’t want someone who easily surrenders. They want the underdog. I guess you can see that despite these attacks, all the storms that have passed, I am still standing.”
She said she was pushing for “real change and leadership” and stressed she was offering voters change.
The 73-year-old Binay’s camp meanwhile said the vice president has decided to kick off his campaign in an impoverished section of Manila “to be with the masses” – away from his traditional stronghold in the Makati district, one of the country’s wealthiest.
Surveys show contradictory results
According to an independent survey carried out by BusinessWorld-Social Weather Stations, Binay edged out Poe, rising five percentage points higher to 31 percent, with Poe at 24 percent.
Another survey however, carried out by Laylo and commissioned by the Manila Standard from January 27 to February 4, had Poe in the lead with 29 percent, followed by Binay, Roxas and Duterte.
The survey was released just a month after the high court prevented the Commission on Elections from striking out Poe’s name on questions about her citizenship and certificate of candidacy.
Roxas, meanwhile, has decided to take his campaign in his hometown in the central Philippines.
In recent televised ads, he appeals for votes, promising he won’t steal a single centavo from voters and vowed to follow the “straight and narrow path” unlike his opponents, an obvious reference to Binay.
Rodrigo ‘The Punisher’ Duterte courts fresh controversy
Duterte, 70, known in the local press as “the Punisher” for his tough stance against crime, is also attempting to shore up his numbers in the capital Manila.
But he has appeared to have courted fresh controversy by publicly showing off his antics – locking lips with women foremost among them. He has also vowed to free former president Gloria Arroyo, in jail for corruption charges if he won, and to reinstate the death penalty to target big time drug traffickers.
“Criminals have no place in the city, except in jails, detention centers, and God forbid, in funeral parlors,” Duterte once said, and was quoted as well for offering a huge bounty for the head of a wanted, alleged drug kingpin - literally.
He said the pusher’s head should be brought to him in a container “in dry ice, so it will not smell.”
“I don’t need you to bring the body, just bring me the head,” he said in widely quoted reports.
Vice Presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Presidential candidate Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago are seen during the campaign kickoff held in Ilocos Norte on 09 February 2016. (Voltaire Domingo/NPPA IMAGES)
Santiago, the bottom dweller in the race, decided to take her campaign to the stronghold Ferdinand Marcos Jr., drawing on the “solid north” crowd. She is however largely not expected to win, even though she has strong fan base as a graft buster.
The feisty senator had once lost a presidential race, and she had bitterly alleged massive cheating then. She did however win a senate seat, and has built on a reputation with her carefully thought out and legal arguments during inquiries.
She has however sided with Marcos, whom she chose as her running mate, and forcing the public to pause and rethink, analysts say. There too are questions about her physical health – she has been weak and has been out of public sight during the campaign.
“I tell you today, I have passed all the physical hardships known to man,” she said last year. “Do you want a clean government? Do you want a courageous government? If that is the case, do you want me (as your next president)?”
Marcos makes a vow
Her running mate, Marcos, said he would support whoever won in the elections, but vowed he would not be relegated to the sidelines.
“I won’t just be the President’s ‘cheerleader’ or apologist, nor will I be his or her rubber stamp but I will fully cooperate in programs that will uplift the lives of the people because we need unity to get the country moving towards a progressive future,” he said.
He said he would not be silenced if he sees or feels wrongdoings in the government.
But a group of former activists who suffered under the Marcos dictatorship has vowed to hound the campaign, arguing that 30 years after his father was kicked out of a popular “people power” revolution none of them has been jailed.
Marcos, the father, ruled the country for two decades, during which thousands of activists went tortured, went missing or were killed. It is estimated that the family had plundered 10 billion dollars from the national coffers, enriching themselves and their cronies.
He died in exile in Hawaii in 1989, and subsequently, the matriarch Imelda Marcos and her children were allowed to return home. They have since climbed their way back to the political ladder. None have been jailed.
