Philippines election result: The votes are in

Because the noise and color of a two-month election marketing campaign subsides, a sport of thrones between the 2 strongest households within the Philippines resumes.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for energy.

As allies they received a landslide victory within the final presidential election in 2022.

However as their relationship has fractured – he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him – this mid-term election has change into a crucial barometer of the power of those two political dynasties.

And the results weren’t nice information for the Marcos camp. Usually incumbent presidents within the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected within the mid-term election. The facility of presidential patronage is a big benefit, no less than it has been prior to now.

However not this time.

Solely six of the twelve successful senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of these one, Camille Villar, is simply half in his camp, as she additionally accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte.

4 of the senators are within the Duterte camp, together with the president’s sister Imee Marcos. Two had been within the high three vote-winners, forward of any Marcos candidate.

For a sitting president, this can be a poor end result.

Senators are elected on a easy, nationwide vote, which is an effective indication of nationwide opinion. The end result might weaken the authority of the Marcos administration within the final three years of his time period, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching her.

The Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating nearly because the begin of their administration three years in the past. But it surely was solely this yr that it ruptured fully.

The choice by the president’s allies in Congress to begin impeaching the vice-president was the primary irreparable breach.

Then in March President Marcos despatched Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal conflict on medicine. The police have additionally now filed legal costs in opposition to her.

The gloves had been off. Impeachment would lead to Sara Duterte being barred from public workplace, ending her ambition to exchange President Marcos on the subsequent election.

Proper now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if profitable, she would use the facility of the presidency to hunt vengeance in opposition to the Marcos’s.

However impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered a lot to each camps.

Politics within the Philippines is a household enterprise. As soon as a household achieves political energy, it holds onto it, and passes it across the varied generations.

Whereas there are round 200 influential households, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit on the high of the pyramid.

The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The present president’s father dominated from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial legislation, and plundering billions of {dollars} from the nationwide purse.

Bongbong Marcos’ mom, Imelda, who on the age of 95 solid her vote on this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and never only for her shoe collection.

His sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, due to her determination to defect to the Duterte camp.

His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the decrease home and a probable presidential candidate in 2028 – most likely the explanation why Bongbong Marcos was so eager to drive via the impeachment of Sara Duterte.

Within the president’s residence province of Ilocos Norte, his spouse’s cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two different cousins elected as metropolis councillors. Up there, Marcoses at all times win.

A lot the identical is true of the Dutertes of their stronghold in Davao on the different finish of the nation.

Even from his jail cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and received simply, regardless that all voters acquired to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout.

His absence is not going to matter although, as a result of the earlier mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor’s job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the final 37 years.

The issue confronting each camps is that the senators additionally sometimes come from large political households, or are celebrities in their very own proper – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background.

They’ve pursuits and ambitions of their very own. Even when formally allied with one camp or the opposite, there isn’t a assure they may keep loyal, particularly on the problem of impeachment.

“Senators within the Philippines are very delicate to nationwide public opinion, as a result of they think about themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting,” says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Analysis, which screens public opinion.

“So, they’re at all times making an attempt to learn the general public thoughts, and facet with public opinion due to their future political ambitions.”

In current months public sentiment has not been on the president’s facet.

Bongbong Marcos has by no means been an excellent public speaker, and his stage appearances within the marketing campaign did little to elevate his flagging reputation.

His administration of the economic system, which is struggling, will get low marks in opinion polls, and his determination to detain former President Duterte and ship him to the Worldwide Felony Court docket is being portrayed by the Duterte household as a nationwide betrayal.

At an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila’s port space, Sara Duterte performed an emotionally-charged video of the second her father was taken into custody at Manila’s worldwide airport and placed on a non-public jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable remedy of a nonetheless fashionable former president.

“They did not simply kidnap my dad, they stole him from us,” she informed the cheering crowd.

Additionally on stage was President Marcos’s elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – although most observers view this as a cynical transfer to capitalise on Duterte fashionable help, so she might elevate her personal flagging marketing campaign to retain her senate seat.

It labored. From polling low via a lot of the marketing campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the “magic twelve”, as they name the successful senators.

What occurs now could be tough to foretell, however the Marcos camp actually faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached.

Of the 24 senators, solely a handful are mechanically loyal to the president. The remainder must be persuaded to go together with it, , and that will not be simple.

This election has proven that the Dutertes nonetheless have very sturdy public help in some areas, and a few within the Marcos election alliance are already on document as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The identical goes for the 12 senators who weren’t up for election this yr.

One vivid spot for the president may very well be the shock election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, each from the liberal wing of politics.

Few polls had predicted their wins, which recommend a public want for politicians exterior the Marcos-Duterte feud.

Neither is a pal of the Marcos clan – liberals had been the primary opposition to the Marcos-Duterte crew within the 2022 election.

However they had been strongly against the strongman fashion of former President Duterte, and should worry his pugnacious daughter changing into president in 2028. That could be sufficient to get them to vote for impeachment.

The impeachment trial is anticipated to begin in July. The Dutertes will be anticipated to proceed chipping away on the president’s battered authority in public, and each camps will likely be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their facet.

No president or vice-president has ever been efficiently impeached within the Philippines. Nor have any president and vp ever fallen out so badly.

It’s going to be a turbulent yr.