Philippines heads to polls with Marcos-Duterte feud at center stage
MANILA, Philippines — Millions of Filipinos headed to the polls Monday in a mid-term election widely seen as a referendum on the explosive feud between President Ferdinand Marcos and impeached Vice President Sara Duterte.
Long lines were already forming at polling stations across the capital Manila before voting officially began at 7:00 am (2300 GMT Sunday), AFP journalists saw.
The race will decide more than 18,000 posts, from seats in the House of Representatives to hotly contested municipal offices.
It is the battle for the Senate, however, that carries potentially major implications for 2028's presidential election.
The 12 senators chosen Monday will form half the jury in a Duterte impeachment trial later this year that could see her permanently barred from public office.
Duterte's long-simmering feud with former ally Marcos exploded in February when she was impeached by the House for alleged "high crimes" including corruption and an assassination plot against the president.
Barely a month later, her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested and flown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) the same day to face a charge of crimes against humanity over his deadly anti-drugs campaign.
Sara Duterte will need nine votes in the 24-seat Senate to preserve any hope of a future presidential run.
Heading into Monday, seven of the candidates polling in the top 12 were endorsed by Marcos while four were aligned with his vice president.
Two, including the president's independent-minded sister Imee Marcos, were "adopted" as honorary members of the Duterte family's PDP-Laban party on Saturday.
The move to add Marcos and television personality Camille Villar to the party's slate was intended to add "more allies to protect the Vice President against impeachment", according to the resolution.
On Monday, the president cast his vote at an elementary school in his family's traditional stronghold of Ilocos Norte province. His mother Imelda, 95, was at his side.
At her final rally in Manila on Thursday, Duterte invoked the spectre of "massive" electoral fraud and once again referred to her father's transfer to the ICC as a "kidnapping".
Despite his detention at The Hague, the elder Duterte remains on the ballot in his family's southern stronghold of Davao city, where he is seeking to retake his former job as mayor.
At least one local poll is predicting he will win comfortably.
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