Carlo Kim '23
Vice President and leader of the main senatorial opposition bloc in the Philippines, Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo, officially registered her Presidential bid on October 7th for the 2022 elections.
The Liberal Party (LP) to which she is aligned maintains three of twenty-four total seats in the Senate and eighteen seats in the House of Representatives, making it the fourth largest party within Congress and the ruling coalition’s foremost legal opposition presence in the heavily contested political sphere of the nation. The LP is only eclipsed by sitting President Rodrigo Duterte’s Nationalist Party (NP), the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), and the National Unity Party (NUP).
In Robredo’s announcement speech, she criticized Duterte’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, all the while lamenting the loss of lives to the disease and the social sores of the nearly 20 million Filipinos living in poverty rubbed raw by the crisis. Recounting popular allegations of Duterte’s corruption, ineptitude, and anti-democratic tendencies, Robredo said: “Hospitals are filled to capacity, health workers are calling for a timeout, the jobless are going hungry. Meanwhile, billions upon billions of pesos went into questionable contracts while millions of Filipinos struggle…
“We should all know by now: There is much hunger, suffering, and death because those in power have prioritized self-interest over the welfare of the Filipino. The lack of good governance lies at the root of our many problems. This needs to end.”
The Liberals, leading an opposition coalition consisting of the social-democratic Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party (CAP) as well as the progressive Democratic Action Party (DAP), have also received the endorsement of an anti-Duterte group of politicians, farmers, students, retired military officials, civil rights activists, and legal experts called 1Sambayan (“1People”) which plans to consult the Vice President throughout her campaign.
Robredo’s pedigree comes majorly in her having beaten Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., the son of the Philippine's former dictator who was overthrown in 1986, by a margin of 263,473 votes, barely carrying her bid for vice presidency (an office which is elected separately to the presidency in the Philippines).
In a twist which flushed even Hamlet’s cheeks, Marcos too has staked his claim on the presidency in 2022., Iand in a short speech given two days prior to Robredo’s, Marcos lay out his intentions in attaining executive office, stating, “We must face the challenge [of COVID-19] as one, as one country, as one people. Together, we must work towards a shared vision of our country through COVID and beyond COVID, to find a way through this crisis with a common goal—a vision to guide us and to lead us. I know that it is this manner of unifying leadership that can lead us through this crisis, get our people safely back to work for all of us to begin to live our lives once again, and that is why I am today announcing my intention to run for the presidency.”
Marcos is a member of the Federal Party of the Philippines (FPP), a breakoff of various other nationalist groups vehemently loyal to Duterte. The FPP is currently backing Marcos’ campaign.
Marcos, Jr., in a manner which might make his father proud if his simultaneous heart, lung, and kidney ailments had not smoldered his insides for his work on the out, defends senior’s dictatorship (1965-1986) emphatically, commemorating the 40th anniversary of his father’s declaration of martial law with the statement that “Most of what we hear today [about the dictatorship] are self-serving statements by politicians, self-aggrandizement narratives, pompous declarations, and political posturing and propaganda.”
Duterte, often appraised as politically adjacent to Marcos, Sr., supported Marcos, Jr., in his 2016 vice presidential campaign. Although Duterte publicly claims he will not endorse any candidate for the 2022 presidential election, it remains to be seen whether he will throw his very serious weight around on behalf of the FPP’s nominee.
Regardless, Duterte’s disinclination to run for a second term comes as a surprise for many, given his approval rating of upwards of 60%, according to Reuters. His “war on drugs,” inspired to some extent by its brother in arms in the United States, is his most infamous policy, resulting in the deaths of 5,000-20,000 people without judicial oversight. His other positions include heavy investments in infrastructure and increased tax burdens on the poor—policies which economists have dubbed “Dutertenomics”—the belief that “as long as there are many beautiful women, there will be more rape cases,” and an order to his military regarding female guerillas which can only be relayed in its original wording: “Tell the soldiers, ‘There’s a new order coming from the mayor. We won’t kill you. We will just shoot your vagina…’
“If there is no vagina, it would be useless.”
Those women he’s referencing are members of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) militant wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) (combined as the CPP-NPA).
Since 1969, the NPA has been on an unbroken campaign of guerilla warfare in the Filipino countryside, and it has established itself in 73 out of the nation’s 81 provinces. Within its controlled areas, the CPP-NPA has raised its own state structure known as the people’s democratic government, holding the first legal gay marriage in the recorded history of the Philipines, collecting taxes and distributing them in a novel, democratized system, carrying out work in raising resources for the often lacking stocks of the rural population, uniting various mass organizations and parties under a coalition government in the form of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), and is waging a tooth-and-nail military struggle with the government in Manila, achieving strategic success.
In the words of the founder of the CPP-NPA, Jose Maria Sison, “As it now stands, the people’s democratic government has millions of people under its governance and influence. It is mindful of the class line in the national united front and in the anti-feudal united front [an organization particular to the countryside] in being able to govern the revolutionary mass organizations and the broad masses of the people.”
Duterte takes considerable pride in his systematic policy of warfare against the CPP-NPA, and in 2020 decided to officially end any talks of a ceasefire between the two rival governments, saying, “I am not and never will be ready for any round of talks.”
If Robredo indeed ascends to the office of the presidency, however, peace talks may resume. It is, on the other hand, unlikely that Marcos will meet the NDFP with anything but equal or greater violence as has heretofore been observed, particularly given the role of the NPA in frustrating Marcos’ father’s dictatorship all throughout its existence as well as the revolutionaries’ instrumental part in its ultimate downfall.
In any event, the outcome of the election may not be so crucial if the CPP-NPA continues to make gains, and even if the Manila government is able to persist throughout its present trials, the NDFP will continue to operate its own government structure in its aligned territories.
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