Philippines Politics

By: Veronica Leighton

 

With the soon-approaching presidential elections in the Philippines on May 9, 2022, I have been asked by many friends from here who’s my favored candidate. Though they know that I am no longer a Filipino voter since I had become an American citizen, I figured they wanted to know who’s my favored candidate. My answer, no one, so far, as of this writing, but I would like to share some thoughts in this column about the most exciting Philippine politics, always.

One thing for sure, it is very colorful. People’s ideology seems to get identified with colors, pink, yellow, red, blue, and others. Photos taken can easily tell the political factions for the colors that they wear, whatever and wherever views they take it.

Political dynasties and celebrities top the chart of candidates. Among presidential candidates, the names of Marcos, Duterte and Robredo, for political dynasties, and Pacquiao and Moreno for the list of celebrities.

Fake news, disinformation, and trolls have been prevalent and pervasive that people don’t know who and what to believe anymore and it’s proving to be a big challenge for many journalists, just like what’s happening here in our midst in this part of the world.

As the culture of Philippine politics has always been associated with violence and hate, verbal spews have been heard and thrown at each other’s party territories. Expect more killings and crimes, as usual, many predict.

Here are the latest surveys by Manila Bulletin and SWS.

Marcos leads all the Presidential aspirants. The former lawmaker got 47 percent of the votes, while Vice-President Leni Robredo was a far second with 18 percent. Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko” Moreno checked in at third place with 13 percent. Getting the other votes were Senators Manny Pacquiao (9%), and Panfilo “Ping” Lacson (5%) respectively.

Lesser and unknown names of candidates in the official Comelec list are: Leody de Guzman, Ernesto Abella, Norberto Gonzales, and Faisal Mangondalo.