Millions of Filipinos thronged primary schools and other polling stations Monday to elect a new president, with the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos the favourite to win the high-stakes election. Nearly 40 years after the patriarch was deposed by a popular revolt and the family chased into exile, Ferdinand Marcos Junior looks set to complete their remarkable comeback from pariahs to the peak of political power.
Ten candidates are vying to succeed President Rodrigo Duterte in elections seen by many as a make-or-break moment for the Philippines’ fragile democracy. But only Marcos Jr and his rival Leni Robredo, the incumbent vice president, have a credible chance of winning. People wearing masks began forming long queues before dawn to cast their votes when polling stations opened across the archipelago. At Mariano Marcos Memorial Elementary School in the northern city of Batac, the ancestral home of the Marcoses, voters waved hand fans to cool their faces in the tropical heat.
Bomb sniffer dogs swept the polling station before Marcos Jr arrived with his younger sister Irene and eldest son Sandro. They were followed by the family’s flamboyant 92-year-old matriarch Imelda, who was lowered from a white van while wearing a long red top with matching trousers and slip-on flats. Sandro, 28, who is running for elected office for the first time in a congressional district in Ilocos Norte province, admitted the family’s history was “a burden”. But he added: “It’s one that we also try to sustain and protect and better as we serve.” Casting her ballot for Robredo at a school in Magarao municipality, in the central province of Camarines Sur, Corazon Bagay said the former congresswoman “deserves” to win.—APP
