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The Philippine midterm elections may serve as a tie-breaker between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties. The 12 elected senators will determine Sara Duterte’s fate – whether it ends her political career or signals a Duterte comeback. Ironically, charges against former president Rodrigo Duterte and his detention at The Hague prison may have been an advantage to the younger Duterte who still enjoys high rating approval compared with Marcos. Meanwhile, as the Philippines chairs ASEAN next year, Marcos is expected to take a stronger stance in the territorial dispute with China – an issue that former president Duterte failed to address effectively.
Midterm elections in the Philippines usually are rehearsals for the presidential elections that come after three years.
But not the May 12, 2025 election. The stakes are supremely high between the two main protagonists – President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte – making it a do-or-die political contest. Ironically, they are not even candidates in this midterm polls.
When the 68.4 million registered voters go to the polls on May 12, they will be filling up over 18,000 national and local positions. But the most awaited results would be the 12 winners in the senatorial contest, who will be joining the incumbent 12 to complete the 24 member Philippine Senate, which will be transformed into an Impeachment Court during the 20th Congress to try charges against Duterte.
May elections and Duterte Impeachment
Vice President Sara Duterte was impeached by an administration-dominated House of Representatives on February 25, on four charges: graft and corruption, bribery, betrayal of public trust, and other high crimes.
Two-thirds (16) of the senators’ votes are needed to convict Duterte, remove her from the vice president position, and eliminate her from the line of succession. She would also be perpetually banned from holding public office.
A conviction would be an almost fatal blow to the Duterte political machinery, which has already been severely weakened by the detention of former President Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court (ICC) prison in Scheveningen, The Hague in Netherlands for the charges of crimes against humanity, specifically murder, arising from his bloody war on drugs that claimed at least 20,000 lives.
Duterte, on the other hand, needs eight votes to block her conviction.
An acquittal would boost her political prospects and make her shoo-in for the presidency in 2028.
That would be a dreadful prospect for Marcos, who has been publicly threatened by Duterte with assassination. As long as Duterte remains next in the line of succession, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
No sharp ideological differences
Senatorial candidates are grouped under two political groups for the 2025 elections: the Marcos administration-aligned Alyansa ng Bagong Pilipinas (Alliance for a New Philippines) or ABP and Partido ng Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP)-Laban led by the former president Rodrigo Duterte.
ABP is a coalition of four political parties spearheaded by House Speaker Martin Romualdez, who is cousin for the president.
The PDP-Laban has gone through several leadership wranglings in its more than four-decade history. Its internal conflict in 2022 ended with recognition by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) of the group headed by Rodrigo Duterte as the legitimate one.
The Makabayan (Nationalist) coalition is also fielding an 11-member senatorial slate composed partylist representatives and community leaders.
One of the oldest political group, the Liberal Party, which has produced four presidents is fielding one senatorial candidate: re-electionist Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan.
The national political parties reach out to grassroots voters through local political parties,
Except for the Makabayan coalition, which pursues a progressive nationalism, the platforms of most political parties are indistinguishable from one another, with declarations of peace, justice, unity and other principles stated in the Constitution.
The absence of clear ideological foundation of political parties encourages turncoatism, with candidates frequently switching parties to boost one’s chances of being elected.
Senatorial frontrunners
Four days before Election Day, surveys show six or seven candidates running under the Marcos administration’s Alyansa ng Bagong Pilipinas (Alliance of New Philippines) have a good chance of making it to the Magic 12.
But the topnotcher is re-electionist Christopher “Bong” Go, who served former president Rodrigo Duterte as special assistant since his mayoral days in Davao. Also, in the top five is another re-electionist Ronald de la Rosa, a former police chief who executed Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. Dela Rosa expects to be issued a warrant of arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, where Duterte is currently detained on charges for the crime against humanity, specifically murder.
If both are re-elected, Go and De La Rosa are expected to vote for the acquittal of Vice President Sara Duterte in the impeachment trial, along with another incumbent senator, actor Robin Padilla, a known Rodrigo Duterte loyalist.
Duterte endorsement
The battle for the last two slots in the Magic 12 is so close that every vote counts. That is why two ABP senatorial candidates – Camille Villar and presidential sister, Maria Imelda Josefa Remedios "Imee" Marcos – who are dangerously sliding up and down in the ranking, sought the endorsement of Sara Duterte, who maintained a majority approval rating in a survey conducted after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for her father.
If the two Duterte-endorsed candidates make it to the winners’ circle, they would be expected to vote for the acquittal of the vice president.
Filipinos love elections
Democracy-loving Filipinos consider elections as one of the ways that they participate in the country’s governance – they choose the leaders who will govern them.
Voter turnout in past elections has averaged around 80 percent of registered voters, who make up nearly 60 percent of the country’s 116 million population.
The Philippine Constitution guarantees suffrage to all citizens who are at least eighteen years of age, and who shall have resided in the Philippines for at least one year, and in the locality wherein they propose to vote, for at least six months immediately preceding the election.
More than half of the voters in the May 12 elections belong to the 18-44 years old age group.
In the provinces, elections take on a festive atmosphere as political parties hold public rallies featuring show business personalities to attract crowds.
A nationwide pre-election survey asked respondents what would make them vote for a candidate, and their answers focused on basic issues: candidates who can help them put food on the table, better job opportunities, accessible health services.
The respondents concerns reflect the situation on the ground, where 55 percent of Filipino families rate themselves as poor, and 27.2 percent experienced involuntary hunger – being hungry and not having anything to eat – at least once in the past three months.
Such dismal situation makes a large portion of the voting population vulnerable to vote buying, a practice that has become more rampant since the computerization of the elections.
Computerization, which started in 2010 presidential elections (won by Benigno Aquino III), eliminated much of the massive cheating, including ballot box snatching – that characterized the manual canvassing and counting of votes in the past. It compelled candidates to re-strategize their campaigns to win the hearts, minds and votes of the electorate.
A blight on Philippine democracy is the existence of political dynasties, which limit control of the government to a few wealthy and powerful families.
A recent report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) found that 113 of the country’s 149 city mayors belong to political dynasties – families with multiple members occupying elected positions, either one after another or simultaneously. It is no coincidence that many of the provinces controlled by political dynasties remain poor.
Disinformation
The 2016 presidential elections which Rodrigo Duterte won brought to the fore the effectiveness of information distortion in social media in Philippine elections.
Ever since, Meta, formerly known as Facebook, Tiktok, YouTube and other visual platforms have continued to be the favorite election campaign arena even as television struggles to maintain its influence. Video bloggers, also referred to as influencers, are trouncing traditional journalists as primary news sources.
The Duterte camp continues to dominate the disinformation battle, pushing the narrative that the former president was kidnapped when he was brought to the ICC in The Hague and that Marcos is a cocaine-snorting, incompetent chief executive. A Pulse Asia survey conducted two weeks after the former president’s arrest by the Philippine National Police and turnover to the ICC showed the vice president enjoying a substantial increase in approval ratings, while the president registered a huge 17 percent decline.
Anti-Marcos disinformation is not entirely homegrown. China’s hand has been observed in the malicious campaign, as Philippine-China relations deteriorates with frequent clashes in the South China Sea.
Despite China’s public declaration of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, it is not difficult to believe that the regional superpower would welcome a return to power of the Dutertes. Under Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency, Chinese personalities gained favored access while he lambasted American and European officials who expressed concern over extrajudicial killings in his war on drugs.
Elections 2025 and Foreign policy
The president is the chief architect of foreign policy. No drastic changes in foreign policy is expected in the last three years of the Marcos administration but a like-minded Congress would strengthen the Philippine position in the territorial dispute with China as well as negotiations on other matters with other countries.
The chief executive would be more effective in pushing his foreign policy agenda with allies in House of Representatives, where the preparation of the budget emanates, and the Senate with its treaty-making role.
ASEAN
The Philippine leadership will be crucial in 2026 when the country assumes the chairmanship of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nation Nations (ASEAN) after Myanmar skipped its hosting turn due sanctions imposed by the organization over a 2021 coup that overthrew the country’s democratically elected government and replaced with a military junta. Myanmar is barred from ASEAN’s high-level meetings.
Rotation of ASEAN chairmanship is done alphabetically.
An ASEAN chair’s responsibilities go beyond leading all ASEAN meetings and summits. It is responsible for setting the agenda for these meetings, facilitating discussions, and ensuring that decisions are made collectively. Beyond internal affairs, the chair also represents ASEAN in its interactions with dialogue partners and other international organizations, acting as the primary spokesperson for the bloc.
A key point of focus is how the Philippines will steer discussions in the crafting of the ASEAN-China Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China, since it is one of the countries involved in the conflict, alongside Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei.
China claims almost 85 percent of the vast South China Sea, through which an estimated $5.3 trillion worth of goods transit annually. China’s nine-dash-line map, which was invalidated by The Hague-based Arbitral Court, encroaches on the maritime zones of the four ASEAN countries that claims parts of the South China Sea. Clashes frequently occur between Chinese vessels and those of the Philippines, as well as between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels.
The need to manage the conflicting claims in the South China Sea was precipitated after the Philippine Navy discovered, in 1995, that China had occupied Mischief Reef, which lies within the country’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone.
In 1999, the Philippines retaliated by grounding a rusty warship (BRP Sierra Madre) in a nearby Second Thomas Shoal.
The Mischief Reef incident led to a signing of a non-legally-binding ASEAN and China Declaration on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea in 2002 of which states, among others, that the Parties will, “undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.
A number of maritime intrusions and clashes, however, happened while ASEAN and China were working on a legally binding COC. There was the arrest of Chinese fishermen in 2012 in Scarborough Shoal, which resulted in Chinese ships’ permanent presence in the area 124 nautical miles away from a town of Masinloc town in Zambales in the northwestern part of the Philippines.
Chinese control of Scarborough shoal led to the Philippines filing and winning a case against China in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. China did not participate in the PCA case. Instead, it built islands and military structures in several features under its control. That is one of the issues that has to be resolved as ASEAN seeks to come up with an implementable COC.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo said, “Everyone has agreed that we would all like to have a code by 2026 that we have to agree. We’ll try our best.”
EU-PH FTA
The EU and the Philippines have resumed talks on what is described as an “ambitious” and sustainable free trade agreement (FTA).
Negotiations for an EU-Philippine trade and investment accord started in December 2015 as part of a building block for a future region-to-region agreement between the EU and ASEAN. The talks, however, were put on hold with the Duterte government’s hostile reaction to EU’s criticisms of his brutal war on drugs.
The trade agreement is expected not only to boost economic ties but also enhance the values of respect for human rights, good governance and effective ways to fight climate change in line with the rules-based international order being pursued under the EU-Indo Pacific strategy.
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Ellen Tordesillas is president of VERA Files (verafiles.org), a group that undertakes in-depth reporting on current issues and does Fact-checking to fight disinformation. She writes opinion columns which appear in Malaya Business Insight and VERA Files.
Disclaimer: This published work was prepared with the support of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung. The views and analysis contained in the work are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the foundation. The author is responsible for any liability claims against copyright breaches of graphics, photograph, images, audio, and text used.
