HEADLINE: 2022 PHILIPPINE ELECTION: MANILA – Judgment day: 66M to cast votes
Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. and Vice President Maria Leonor ‘Leni’ Robredo TMT FILE PHOTOS
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MORE than 18,000 elective positions, from president to municipal councilor, are up for grabs as at least 65 million Filipinos cast their vote today, May 9.
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Voting ahead were the 1.8 million Filipinos overseas who submitted ballots in Philippine embassies and consulates abroad.
Voting precincts open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
Vying for the presidency are 10 candidates, with survey frontrunner Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo leading the field.
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‘Let’s elect another Marcos’
Interestingly, Marcos and Robredo squared off six years ago, as contenders for the vice presidency.
Robredo edged out Marcos but not without controversy and allegations of massive cheating.
Marcos, who has dodged petitions to disqualify him, has built his campaign on calls for unity and promises to bring down the prices of food staples and generate more jobs.
If Marcos triumphs, it will be a stunning reversal of the 1986 pro-democracy uprising that booted his father out of office into global infamy.
A former provincial governor, congressman and senator, the 64-year-old 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.
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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 years-long social media campaign that harnessed online trolls to smear opponents and whitewash the Marcos family’s checkered history, daring critics to “show me one.” Meanwhile, Robredo promises an administration run on good governance. The only female among the presidentiables, she has been tagged as “weak,” but the throngs of supporters who attended her rallies are confident she will win.
As an economics student at the University of the Philippines in the 1980s, 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, former Interior and Local Government secretary Jesse Robredo, a respected politician, died in a plane crash in 2012.
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Marcos casts his vote for 2022 polls
The new administration stands to inherit immense problems, including an economy battered by the pandemic, deeper poverty and unemployment, hyperinflation due to skyrocketing oil and gas prices, decades-old insurgencies and inflamed political divisions.
The successor of President Rodrigo Duterte 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.
Trailing Marcos and Robredo are boxing champion turned senator Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, former Malacañang spokesman Ernesto Abella, former National Security adviser Norberto Gonzales, labor leader Leodegario “Ka Leody” de Guzman, lawyer-doctor Jose Montemayor Jr., and Faisal Mangondato.
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Will Marcos repeat the errors of his father?
Duterte has urged voters to “follow what your conscience tells you to do” when they cast their ballot.
There are nine bets for the vice presidential position, led by Marcos’ running mate, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
Contesting the 12 Senate seats are 64 candidates.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) listed 260 bets vying for 253 House seats, and almost 200 groups are in the hunt for the 63 party-list positions.
There are 81 bets for governors, 81 for vice governors, 782 for provincial board members, 146 for city mayors, 146 for city vice mayors, 1,650 for city councilors, 1,488 for municipal mayors, 1,488 for municipal vice-mayors, and 11,908 for municipal councilors.
The Comelec and the Philippine National Police have set up checkpoints across the country to thwart poll-related violence.
The Department of Education (DepEd) has set up an Election Task Force Operations and Monitoring Center at its regional and division offices and made the DepEd Mobile App available for faster communication with teachers involved in the election.
The app will enable teachers with DepEd Commons or DepEd email addresses to report concerns and provide feedback on the conduct of polls.
The DepEd Mobile App will start receiving reports by Sunday and will continue to do so even after the polls.
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The task force was activated Sunday and will operate until Tuesday. DepEd is also partnering with Grab Philippines to provide teachers, personnel, and officials serving in the elections with codes to prioritize their transportation services booking on election day, with codes to be released by the weekend, Education Undersecretary Alain Del Pascua said.
The DepEd also urged the public to vote early and observe anti-Covid-19 protocols.
Voters with a temperature of 37.5 degrees Celsius or higher will have to vote at isolation polling precincts and sign a waiver that they will not be able to personally feed their ballots to the vote counting machines and that they will not receive a receipt for their votes.
WITH AP
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