Candidate registrations opened today in the Philippines for the country’s midterm elections next year, which are expected to see a showdown between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his predecessor and former ally, Rodrigo Duterte.
According to a report by Rappler, the weeklong registration period will be from today until October 8. Speaking to reporters yesterday, George Garcia, the chairman of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), said that around 70 million Filipinos are eligible to cast their votes in the May 12 polls.
A total of 18,280 seats will be up for grabs, including 317 seats in Congress, 12 of the 24 seats in the Senate, 82 governorships and vice-governorships, and thousands more executive and legislative positions at the regional and municipal level. For the first time, parliamentary elections will also be held in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, although the candidate registration period for this election will not take place until next month.
Rappler described the mid-term elections “not just as a referendum on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s policies, but also as a test of the popularity of the Duterte family,” following the collapse of the two clans’ political alliance over the past 18 months.
In this regard, the most consequential races will be in the Senate, where the Duterte and Marcos clans are expected to engage in a proxy battle of primacy. Prior to today, more than 30 senatorial aspirants had publicly announced runs for Senate seats, including figures aligned with the Duterte and Marcos camps and from the political opposition.
Back in June, Vice President Sara Duterte declared that her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, planned to run for a Senate seat at the mid-term elections along with her brothers Sebastian and Paolo. This was accompanied by suggestions that the clan would prepare Sebastian for a presidential run in 2028.
As Reuters reported yesterday, President Marcos is also “bolstering his base by endorsing big local names for the Senate.” Among the 12 figures he has endorsed are “three former movie actors, the daughter of the country’s richest man, plus two of his presidential election rivals, among them global boxing icon Manny Pacquiao.”
Relations between the Marcos and Duterte camps have deteriorated rapidly in the two years since the “Uniteam” partnership between Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte won a thundering victory in the 2022 presidential election. They have fallen out over a number of issues, from Sara Duterte’s alleged misuse of “confidential funds” as education secretary to the Marcos administration’s plans to amend the Philippine Constitution.
In June, Sara Duterte resigned from the cabinet, where she held the positions of education secretary and vice-chairperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. Then, last week, lawmakers led by House Speaker Martin Romualdez, a cousin of Marcos, cut her office’s budget by two-thirds after she refused to attend hearings and accused House leadership of fabricating narratives about her misuse of funds.
Despite promising to settle into a quiet retirement in Davao City, Duterte Sr. has also slouched back into the political fray. As relations with the Marcoses have deteriorated, he has accused the president’s legislative allies, including Romualdez, of scheming to lift term limits and tighten their grip on power. He has also accused Marcos of being a drug addict, a claim that the Philippine president has hurled back in his face. His son, Sebastian, has gone so far as to call publicly for Marcos to resign.
Since Philippine presidents are limited to a single six-year term, Marcos will be hoping that maneuvering allies into the Senate can ensure the continuity of his domestic agenda and grant him the power to anoint a successor who can run for the presidency with his blessing in 2028.
A similar logic pertains to the Dutertes. If they and their allies manage to snag a few Senate seats – Duterte Sr.’s PDP party is also endorsing senators Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and Bong Go for reelection – they would have the ability to stymie, or at least complicate Marcos’ legislative agenda. This could also give them the springboard for a reconquest of the presidency in 2028.
Also vying for the Senate are a number of opposition figures, including former senators Kiko Pangilinan and Bam Aquino, Rappler reported. Meanwhile, former senator Leila de Lima, a fierce Duterte critic who spent more than six-and-a-half years in prison on bogus drug charges, will seek a seat in the House of Representatives.