Latest election surveys showed that if elections were held today, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. would be the 17th president of the Republic of the Philippines.
It’s a nightmare in the making for those who have experienced the horrors of martial law and those who know how democracy was distorted and crushed during the Marcos authoritarian regime. Will the 50th year of the declaration of martial law on Sept. 21, 2022 be declared a national holiday by the Philippine president by then, the son and namesake of the man who signed Proclamation 1081 two days prior to its announcement, asked JB Baylon, columnist of Malaya Business Insight and VERA Files.
Pulse Asia’s December 2021 nationwide survey showed Marcos Jr. was the choice of 53% of Filipinos if elections were held now. Other candidates trail behind, with Leni Robredo, the political opposition’s muse, as the choice of 20% of the respondents; Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, 8%; boxing legend and Sen. Manny Pacquiao, 8%; and, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, 6%.
Never has a candidate in the post-1986 people power revolution elections reached that high number consistently in pre-election surveys. Not even Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, who was catapulted into the 2010 presidential race by the massive public sympathy over his mother’s death a few months earlier. He led in all the poll surveys at 40-plus percent, never reaching 50%.
