It Will Be a Bruising Midterm Election, but Marcos Jr. Wields the Big Stick

By Joey Salgado

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. enters 2025 with the second lowest approval rating since former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, based on data tracking from Pulse Asia.

Inflation has been pulling down President Marcos Jr.’s trust and approval ratings for the past two years. And with the midterm election frenzy set to commence in February, he and his campaign team must confront the possibility that frustration with his administration’s perceived failure to rein in prices could dampen voter enthusiasm, setting the stage for a potentially competitive senatorial race.

Then again, maybe not.

Administration candidates continue to dominate the winning circle in the December 2024 surveys of Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations (SWS). And the threat to total dominance comes not from Duterte candidates, but the so-called independents, namely Ben Tulfo and entertainer Willy Revillame.

That’s sobering news for excitable Duterte supporters raring to write Marcos Jr.’s political obituary. Wait, there’s more bad news. Things aren’t looking good for Vice President Sara Duterte either. Her ratings, again based on Pulse Asia’s data, are also the second lowest, after former Vice President Noli de Castro. The number of Filipinos who self-identify as Duterte supporters has also been dropping.

Vice President Duterte’s slide is largely self-inflicted. She tops our naughty list in 2024 with her aberrant behavior and murderous rhetoric, and the damaging revelations of confidential fund misuse at the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Education Department.

Politically costly divorce

If 2022 was the year of unity, with electoral victory the triumphant outcome, 2024 was the year of the great divorce, an acrimonious decoupling that turned out to be more politically costly to the Dutertes.

That there is less optimism for 2025, as revealed by a yearend SWS survey, reflects the concerns of a public worried about the economy and political uncertainty. The open warfare of 2024 will make the midterm election a bruising one.

The practice of politics since Duterte the father has yielded to our worst tribal impulses; political personalities are judged not solely by strict ethical codes of right and wrong, but how they look, where they come from, and the language they speak. Obedience is extracted and expected, to the point of fanaticism. Being “one of us” no longer means sharing with a candidate the same values, principles, or higher interests. It has been reduced to the convenience of geography and the inducements of demagoguery.

Both the Marcos and Duterte camps have been mining these tribal sentiments to extract support for their anointed candidates. This explains the higher voter preference for most candidates of the administration in the North and other regional bailiwicks, and stronger support for some Duterte-backed candidates in Mindanao.

Handicapped

But the Duterte camp is entering the campaign handicapped by the lack of once-formidable resources, a senatorial slate that fails to excite the electorate, declining trust in the Vice President, and the erosion of the Duterte political base. There is greater incentive for the administration to deliver the death blow to the Vice President’s political career and dispose of a proximate threat to the presidency.

But the administration and its allies and operators must calibrate their moves against the Dutertes in the coming months, especially during the campaign period.

A scan of recent statements would indicate that the administration and its allies are preparing to politically decapitate the Dutertes on two fronts.

The first front is legal and constitutional. Vice President Duterte’s impeachment by the House (a certainty) and trial at the Senate (a guilty verdict is not assured), and the filing of charges for non-bailable offenses could commence during the campaign period. These could be presented as the legal consequences of her threat to kill the President and her alleged misuse of confidential funds, no different from divorce lawyers stating their case against a less-than-ideal political partner before the court of public opinion.

A second front could be pursued not as fallback but a parallel track.

This entails the calibrated unmasking of the Duterte regime as one of hype and illusion. The obvious objective is to draw a contrast between a heinous past and a Marcos administration moving forward to redress economic and social grievances made more glaring by the national trauma of drug war killings and large-scale corruption allegedly involving drug money, with the Dutertes and re-electionist Senators Bong Go and Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa among the key personalities.

Go and De la Rosa, of course, could make the case for persecution and play the underdog. The full-on attack on the Dutertes could also generate sympathy, cloaking their endorsements with renewed potency.

Still, the inherent weaknesses of the Duterte candidates and their weakened political base may render this scenario improbable. Pursuing the same tenor and line of attack against the President will not help their cause either.

The administration, on the other hand, appears confident that it can diffuse any surge in sympathy with superior machinery, relentless and pervasive propaganda, the individual strengths of their candidates, and the convincing power of ameliorative politics.

The impetus behind the protest vote, a vote against the incumbent, is turned on its head; voting for Marcos-backed candidates to show displeasure with the Vice President and her father. Therein lies the advantage of being in power.

The stakes are high in this year’s midterm election. Both the President and the Vice President will be fighting for political survival. But right now, a Marcos sits at the Palace and he wields the big stick. Guess what happens next?

This article also appears in Rappler