18,000 posts from president to village head up for grabs

The Philippines’ election season has kicked off with politicians registering for some 18,000 posts marking the advent of what is a typically raucous and deadly seven months of campaigning in the Southeast Asian archipelago.
Among the more famous names who are in the country’s 2016 electoral race, are champion boxer Manny Pacquiao a candidate for senator, and the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos’s son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, announcing a vice-presidential run.
For both, Pacquiao, a congressman, and Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a senator, the higher offices are a potential springboard to the presidency itself, in a country where celebrities and members of powerful clans dominate the political arena, local media said.
The candidacy announcements, come weeks after Grace Poe, the adopted daughter of Philippine movie stars, launched her own campaign for the presidency, a race which early polls show she leads.
Filipinos go to the polls in May to elect a new president and separately a vice president, as well as 12 senators to join the country’s 24-member upper house.
Current President Benigno Aquino who has won international plaudits for tackling systemic corruption and for his solid economic stewardship, is imploring voters to choose longtime ally Mar Roxas to continue his “straight path” style of governance.
“This is a campaign to continue the straight path, a campaign to make our hopes possible, a campaign that will continue the heroic story of the Filipino people,” Aquino said at a rally to announce the Liberal Party’s Senate ticket.
But Roxas has struggled in opinion polls and is facing strong challenges from Jejomar Binay, the current vice president who is being investigated for graft, and Grace Poe, a political novice riding on her late father’s popularity.
The start of a week-long registration process began last Monday for more than 18,000 positions up for grabs — from the presidency down to village captain level — in the May elections.
Binay, a former Aquino ally who now heads the main opposition party, had been a clear leader in opinion polls until the Senate and ombudsman began investigating him for alleged corrupt activities when he was mayor of Makati, the financial district in the Philippine capital.
Binay has insisted on his innocence.
The Philippines, a former US colony of 100 million, has struggled to establish a stable democracy, with many of the problems blamed on dictator Ferdinand Marcos’s rule from 1965-1986.
But his son and namesake is running for the vice presidency next year as an independent, insisting his late father’s rule was benign and that voters will focus on present problems rather than the past.
“There are corrupt Filipinos... within and outside the government who are killing our economy and keeping us poor,” Marcos, 58, said at a weekend rally alongside his controversial mother and former first lady Imelda.
Another feature of the Philippines’ democracy has been politicians resorting to violence to eliminate rivals or cheating to rig polls.
The mayor of a town on the turbulent southern island of Mindanao was shot dead Monday, hours after filing his candidacy for re-election.
Randy Climaco was traveling with relatives and followers through his town of Tungawan when men fired upon their vehicle, a police report said.
“Mayor Climaco died on the spot while four of his companions were wounded,” it added.
On October 1 a roadside bomb injured a local mayor and killed three of his bodyguards in the violence-wracked southern island of Basilan.
The most infamous incident occurred in 2009, when the warlord family of a southern province allegedly massacred 58 people to try to stop a rival registering his candidacy for provincial governor.
While some members of the Ampatuan family accused of orchestrating the massacre are behind bars and on trial for the murders, many others are expected to compete in the polls.
These include Sajid Ampatuan, who has been charged with murder but was allowed to post bail this year.
“I am not here to scare the people but to make their vision real,” Ampatuan, who registered on Monday to run for a village mayor position in his family’s stronghold, told AFP by phone.
Another enduring challenge for the nation’s democracy has been the power of elite clans who dominate national, provincial and local posts, according to political analysts.
“Philippine politics has always been governed by the elite... I don’t think the dynasties will change,” Ateneo University political science professor Benito Lim said.
Roxas, for instance, is the grandson of a former president.
And while Binay does not come from a political family, since rising to influence he has set up his own dynasty, with his wife and children becoming powerful politicians.
Only celebrities, such as movie or sporting stars, have generally been able to challenge the elites.
Boxing hero Manny Pacquiao, 36, is one of those.
The eight-time world champion is currently a member of the House of Representatives and will next year run for a higher-profile Senate seat.
In terms of name recognition Messrs Pacquiao and Marcos Jr will be hard to beat. Yet while Pacquiao is widely feted as the most successful sportsman in Philippine history, Marcos’s personal background makes him a much more divisive figure.
At 36, Pacquiao is close to hanging up his gloves following a $100 million payday earlier this year after his loss to American world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. But he is too young to be president: the Philippine constitution requires candidates for the top job to be at least 40.
A six-year term in the influential senate would instead equip Pacquiao for a tilt at the presidency in 2022, said political commentator Ramon Casiple, adding that voters won’t be dissuaded by Mr. Pacquiao’s poor attendance record in congress (he spent only four days in session in Manila last year, according to congressional records).
Pacquiao has a reputation for philanthropy in Sarangani, the province he represents in congress. “Pacquiao is popular, but not just because he’s a boxer,” Casiple said. “There’s a perception that he’s a champion of the poor—that’s why he’s a serious candidate.”
Senate candidates need only finish in the top 12 in the nationwide vote to win and Pacquiao placed ninth in a recent survey by Social Weather Stations, a Philippine polling service, which asked voters whom they would back as senator.
In contrast, Marcos Jr, vying for only one vice-presidential berth, faces a tough scrap, with four other candidates already in the running, and others likely to join before the Oct. 16 deadline passes. The lawmaker, who is 58, came third in a vice-presidential survey by Pulse Asia, another polling service, last week.
Nothing divides opinion in the Philippines quite like the Marcoses.
The former first family is still well-loved in the north of the country, their home turf, and among Filipinos who look back fondly on the strong-armed rule of former President Ferdinand Marcos. The younger Marcos’s election as senator in 2010, by a wide margin, was testament to the family’s enduring appeal.
Yet the Marcos clan is also widely reviled, especially among the generation that toppled the elder Marcos in the 1986 People Power Revolution, angered by the regime’s gross human rights violations and the theft of billions of dollars from the nation’s coffers. Mr. Marcos Sr. was ultimately replaced by Corazon Aquino, the mother of the current president, Benigno Aquino III. He died in exile in Hawaii in 1989.
For Mr. Marcos’s famous mother and former first lady, Imelda, now 86, there is already a sense of disappointment: she was widely reported to be urging her son—who is known widely by his nickname, Bongbong—to aim higher and run for president.
Yet even securing the vice-presidency would cap an extraordinary comeback for the Marcos family, who were hounded out of the country three decades years ago, only to re-emerge as political force.
In announcing his campaign, Marcos Jr. pledged to “banish the politics of personality,” which he said had long held the Philippines back.
Nuisance candidate Eli Pamatong was among the first to file his certificate of candidacy (COC) to run for President the third time. He was declared a nuisance candidate in the 2004 and 2010 polls.
As the deadlined loomed, 22 individuals have manifested their determination to run for President, three for Vice President and 16 for senator.
Other prominent personalities to join the presidential race were Camilo Sabio, 79, former chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Goverrnment (PCGG), and radio commentator Rizalito David.
Former senator Panfilo Lacson was recorded as the first to file his COC.
Lacson, a former member of the Aquino Cabinet who is included in the Liberal Party ticket, indicated in his COC that he is an independent candidate.
Some not-so-popular individuals also filed their COC, among them Sel Hope Kang, 38, who is seeking the presidency.
In her speech, the home economics graduate of the University of the Philippines asked the help of the media to give her a chance to run to be able to help those who are in need.
In her COC, Kang indicated she was only 37 years old, which is three years short of the required minimum age of 40 years old.
But she said, “[It’s okay, I am exempted, I am a cum laude graduate from the University of the Philippines].”
Kang added that her slogan is “Dalisay na Daan [literally, Pure Path].”
Tricycle driver Eddie Llamas and Pastor Eric Negapatan are also seeking the presidential post.
Among the other presidential aspirants are Eprahim Defiño, 58, Federal Party, Mindanao; David Alimorong, Independent, Antipolo City; Ralph Masloff, 61, Independent, Cebu; Danilo Lihaylihay, 54, Independent; and Adolfo Inductivo, Independent.
– Agencies