ON May 9th, 2022, America’s “oldest friend in Asia” — as President Bill Clinton once put it — will hold its 17th presidential election since 1935. There are 10 candidates running for Philippine president. Of the 10, five are considered “serious” candidates. “Serious” as in: he or she is well-known and could win.
They are Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Gerona Robredo, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, Sen. Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, and former Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Romualdez Marcos Jr.
• Leni Robredo, who will be 57 on April 23, is the widow of Jesse Robredo, a very well regarded city mayor and cabinet official of President Noynoy Aquino. Jesse died in a plane crash in 2012. His wife is a lawyer and a former House member. In the 2016 election for vice president, she narrowly defeated Bongbong Marcos. Like Noynoy in 2010, Leni Robredo is the bona fide candidate for good and clean government. Unlike Noynoy, however, Leni is considered an underdog.
• A former national police chief, Ping Lacson, 73, is an anti-crime and anti-corruption crusader who actually goes after the criminals and the corrupt. He’s not going to win.
• Mayor Isko, 47, is a former actor. Born and raised in the slums of Tondo, Manila, he was 10 years old when he started helping his parents put food on the table. Eight years later, he was “discovered” by a talent scout and became an actor. He entered politics in 1998 by running for and winning a seat on Manila’s city council. He would be re-elected twice. He prepared for higher office by completing his college education. After obtaining a business administration degree, he studied local legislation and local finance as well as public administration. He also attended non-degree programs, fellowships and short courses in leadership and governance at Harvard and at the University of Oxford. He was elected vice mayor of Manila in 2007 and re-elected twice. He ran for one of the 12 senatorial seats in 2016, but could only finish 16th. He served in the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte before running for Manila mayor in 2019 against two political heavyweights: former President and then incumbent Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada and former Sen. Alfredo Lim. Moreno won, garnering an impressive 50.15% of the total votes cast. He beat Erap by 20 percentage points.
Moreno is considered an effective, competent mayor. As a candidate for president, his campaign slogans are “We are Isko” and “Real Solution, Fast Action.”
• Everyone knows who Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao is. But not a lot of people know why the 43-year-old boxing legend is running for president. Like Moreno, Pacquiao was born poor — Third World poor. He dropped out of high school and became a construction worker when he was 14 years old. But he also had killer fists. In 2007, at the height of his boxing career, he ran for the House of Representatives, and lost. Three years later, he again ran for the House, but this time in his wife’s hometown province. He won, and was re-elected, unopposed, in 2013. In 2016, he won a senatorial seat. Pacquiao used to be a staunch supporter of President Rodrigo Duterte (who is constitutionally barred from seeking another six-year term). But Duterte didn’t appreciate Pacquiao’s criticism of widespread government corruption which Duterte had vowed to “solve” — like drug trafficking.
In the Philippines, to quote a post-WWII politician, political parties are “mere letters in the alphabet.” Campaign platforms, moreover, are basically interchangeable. They’re all “for the people.” Pacquiao’s platform is best summed up by video clips showing him handing cash to members of the public. When told that some of his critics believe he’s not intelligent enough to be president, Pacquiao replied, “The dumbest are those who will vote for a plunderer.”
• Bongbong Marcos, 64, or BBM is the son of the Philippine president named by the Guinness World Records as the record holder for the “greatest robbery of a government.” But that information has been recently taken down from its website by the Guinness World Records which said it was reexamining the record “to make sure that [it] is accurate.” Some say that the butcher of Russia, Vladimir Putin, “with assets totaling up to $200 billion,” should now hold the record.
Bongbong, in any case, is the clear frontrunner, according to reputable poll surveys. Apparently, the new generation of Filipino voters are not familiar with, or are misinformed about the disastrous record of BBM’s father who was ousted in a military-backed popular uprising 36 years ago. BBM’s other supporters, for their part, say he’s not his father. Let’s hope so, but he seems to be a firm believer of his own lies — like his father.
Marcos Sr. claimed to be a guerrilla leader during World War II who received 33 medals — the P.I.’s “most decorated war hero.”
Here’s what the New York Times reported on Jan. 23, 1986:
“The [U.S.] Army concluded after World War II that claims by Ferdinand E. Marcos that he had led a guerrilla resistance unit during the Japanese occupation of his country were ‘fraudulent’ and ‘absurd.’ ”
As for his 33 medals, the Philippine Star reminded its readers in 2017, that “only two were given during World War 2. One was the Gold Cross and the other the Distinguished Service Star. Both were given in 1945 and both [were] contested by Marcos’ superiors…. [V]irtually all of Marcos’ medals were awarded long after the war. Eleven medals were given in 1963, when Marcos was Senate President…. Of these, 10 were awarded on the same day on December 20…. Eight of Marcos’ ‘American and Philippine medals’ were campaign ribbons given to all who participated in the defense of Bataan and the resistance against Japanese. One of the awards was received by Marcos on Sept. 17, 1972, his 55th birthday…. Some medal citations were for the same event.”
Marcos Sr. lied about stupendous things, compared to which BBM’s most glaring lie, so far, is pitiable. BBM continues to say that he’s an Oxford graduate even though the university itself has already stated that “he did not complete his degree, but was awarded a special diploma in Social Studies in 1978. The special diploma was not a full graduate diploma.”
Question: “In politics, what do you call a barefaced liar?” Answer: “A successful politician.”
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Manila Mayor and Philippine presidential candidate Isko Moreno, left, shows his dance moves.
