The Philippines will on Monday hold elections to elect a new president with anti-establishment firebrand Rodrigo Duterte the shock favourite after an incendiary campaign in which he vowed to butcher criminals.
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More than 45,000 other candidates are contesting 18,000 national, congressional and local positions in elections that have traditionally been tainted by violence and accusations of cheating, specially in far-flung rural areas.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) – Thirty years after emerging from a brutal dictatorship, Filipinos will face a dilemma when they pick a new leader on Monday: Should they choose a sharp-tongued mayor with an audacious promise to wipe out crime and corruption within months, or back reformists who aren’t regarded as a threat to democracy?
Elections in the Philippines have a habit of turning violent, and as a result more than 100,000 police officers will be on duty amid fears of unrest across the nation.
In a June 2015 report, “The rise of the Philippines’ death squad mayor”, Phelim Kine, deputy director for Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, traced Duterte’s history of endorsing the summary killing of suspected criminals. I have no patience; I have no middle ground.
The task force previously said 15 people had been killed in election-related incidents since the start of the year.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV has filed a corruption complaint alleging the mayor hired nonexistent employees and kept a huge amount in a joint bank account with his daughter that he did not declare publicly in 2014, as required by law. “I can not do it alone”, Aquino said in an appeal to voters in a final rally on Saturday in Manila for his preferred successor and fellow Liberal Party stalwart, Mar Roxas.
Duterte’s critics have warned he will plunge the country into another dark period of dictatorship and turmoil, three decades after the “People Power” revolution ended the regime of Ferdinand Marcos.
It came as a surprise when administration bet Manuel “Mar” Roxas II called for unity with independent candidate Sen. “Grace Poe continues to be the only possible candidate who can beat Duterte”, political analyst Dindo Manhit said. Poe has been dogged by contentions that she failed to fulfill a minimum residency requirement, and once renounced her Philippine citizenship to live in the U.S. Vice-President Binay, also in the running, has been rocked by serious graft allegations – which he strenuously denies – while Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago has never been in serious contention.
In an opinion column last week, Philippine writer Miguel Syjuco said Duterte’s message resonated with the frustrated poor and described his “change is coming” slogan as “the exactly right message from the completely wrong messenger”.
Duterte has also raised eyebrows with his use of profanity, a joke about a gang rape, and a comment about killing his own kids if they ever took drugs.
Duterte went into polling day with an 11-percentage-point lead over his rivals, according to the latest survey.
The election centers on domestic issues such as crime, corruption, poverty and transportation.
Ronald Holmes, president of independent pollster Pulse Asia, however, said the race, one of the most closely fought in the country’s electoral history, remained too tight to call.
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President Benigno Aquino, the son of the country’s democracy icons Benigno and Corazon Aquino, was elected in a landslide in 2010, but his popularity has taken a dent in the past two years as crime worsened — even as the economy chugged forward. Philippines has enjoyed one of the region’s strongest economic growth rates under Mr Aquino but the benefits have by-passed much of the country. Richard Heydarian of De La Salle University in Manila, adding that in the mayor’s portrayal of social problems, “there is a gap between the rhetoric and reality but it’s working, it’s creating panic among a lot of people and rallying them behind Duterte”.
