Ferdinand Marcos Jr. clearly won the presidential election in the Philippines with probably more than 59 percent of the vote. According to the unofficial extrapolation of the Catholic organization Pastoral Parish Council for responsible voting (PPCRV), the 64-year-old dictator’s son was unassailable late Monday evening after counting more than 90 percent of the constituencies. The opposition candidate for the presidency and incumbent vice-president Leni Robredo, 57, came in second with around 28 percent, according to the preliminary election results published by the council. In the vice presidential election, more than 60 percent of voters voted for Sara Duterte, 45, Mayor of Davao and daughter of incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte, 77, who is not allowed a second term under the constitution.
Sara Duterte started with Marcos as “UniTeam”. Until recently, thousands of Catholic priests, bishops and religious had warned the faithful of a comeback of the Marcos clan and called for Robredo to be elected. With the election victory, the clan returns to power more than 36 years after the fall of dictator Marcos Sr. Around 66 million eligible voters were asked to vote for one of the ten presidential candidates and nine for the vice-presidency. The only points that Marcos and Duterte put forward in the election campaign were an invocation of Philippine unity and a promise to continue the policies of their fathers. According to observers, Marcos and Duterte used trolls to dominate social media with fake news and historical misrepresentations, apparently winning over the internet-savvy youth. Marcos Jr. described his father’s regime, characterized by human rights violations, persecution of political opponents and corruption, as the “golden age of the Philippines”. Signs of Rodrigo Duterte’s tenure were also massive human rights violations, thousands of murders in the so-called war on drugs, suppression of press freedom and persecution of dissidents. According to initial reports, there were irregularities in the election on Monday. The election commission confirmed media reports about the temporary failure of many voting machines, which led to long queues forming in front of the polling stations until the official end of voting at 7 p.m. local time. In at least one polling station, test ballots from Marcos and Duterte’s “UniTeam” were mixed up with official election documents, according to election observers from the Caritas charity and the PPCRV.