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MANILA, Philippines (AP) — One supporter wrote a stirring marketing campaign music that has been performed practically 4 million occasions on Spotify. Different volunteers are barnstorming Philippine villages, going door-to-door to endorse Vice President Leni Robredo in subsequent week’s presidential election.
The stakes are excessive: If Robredo’s opponent, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., clinches the presidency, as surveys counsel, it can mark a surprising reversal for a nation the place tens of millions poured out in 1986 to pressure overseas a dictator and Marcos’s father, whose legacy continues to shadow his son.
Followers from various backgrounds — households with their grandparents and youngsters, medical doctors, activists, Catholic clergymen and nuns, TV and film stars, farmers and college students — have joined Robredo’s fiesta-like marketing campaign rallies within the tens of hundreds. She referred to as the rising motion a “pink revolution” after the colour worn by her volunteers.
The massive crowds, in addition to drone photographs and movies posted on-line by followers, evoke recollections of the large however largely peaceable 1986 “Individuals Energy” rebellion that toppled strongman Ferdinand Marcos in an Asian democratic milestone that awed the world.
Whereas the rallying name then was to convey again democracy after years of a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, the battle cry of Robredo’s supporters is a promise to convey good and corruption-free governance together with her as the brand new reformist torchbearer.
“We’ve been wanting good governance, sincere, hard-working authorities officers, who genuinely look after the folks, and he or she’s lastly right here,” stated Nica del Rosario, a 32-year-old musician. “Let’s not waste this opportunity as a result of any person like her doesn’t come fairly often.”
Together with her colleagues, del Rosario wrote and sang two marketing campaign songs for Robredo, together with “Rosas” — Tagalog for roses — a tribute to the opposition chief’s patriotic and humble model of hands-on politics that has develop into an emotional anthem to her followers. The music has been streamed greater than 3.9 million occasions on Spotify in simply two months, and has gone viral on Fb and YouTube and pushed supporters to tears at rallies.
However Robredo is combating an uphill electoral battle in opposition to Marcos’s son and namesake, who has topped voter-preference surveys with a seemingly insurmountable lead.
Robredo remained in second place in impartial surveys for the 10-way presidential race, far behind Marcos Jr., with only a week earlier than 67 million registered voters choose their subsequent chief on Might 9.
Marcos Jr. topped the most recent ballot by Pulse Asia with 56% help, though his score dipped barely among the many lower-middle class, and Robredo ranked second with 24% after a nine-point rise. The opposite candidates lagged far behind within the March 17-21 survey, which polled 2,400 Filipinos of voting age nationwide with a margin of error of two share factors.
Marcos Jr.’s candidacy has been bolstered by his vice-presidential operating mate, Sara Duterte, the daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte, who has remained widespread regardless of his bloody crackdown on unlawful medication and dismal human rights file that has left hundreds useless since 2016.
“There’s nonetheless a risk that individuals will change their determination,” Pulse Asia president Ronald Holmes stated of voter preferences. It’s additionally arduous to seize the impact of word-of-mouth and house-to-house campaigns, he stated.
Activists who helped oust Marcos 36 years in the past worry Philippine historical past can be upended if his son takes over a rustic lengthy seen because the Asian bulwark of democracy. Marcos Jr., a 64-year-old former senator, has defended his father’s legacy and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge and apologize for the widespread abuses and plunder that scarred the Philippines throughout his martial legislation rule. Courts within the U.S. and the Philippines in addition to authorities investigations have provided indeniable proof of that interval.
“My worst worry is the return of the Marcoses… as a result of we are going to face international condemnation. Individuals might be asking us, ‘Haven’t you discovered? You stated in ’86 by no means once more and now he’s again. So what are you telling us?’” stated Florencio Abad, a political detainee within the Seventies below Marcos who later served in prime authorities posts after the dictator’s downfall and now advises Robredo’s marketing campaign.
Robredo, 57, a former congresswoman and mom of three, is operating independently and doesn’t belong to any of the nation’s entrenched political dynasties and rich land-owning clans.
She has been cited for her integrity and ease within the poverty- and corruption-plagued Southeast Asian nation, the place two presidents had been accused of plunder and overthrown, together with the elder Marcos, who died in U.S. exile in 1989. A 3rd was detained for practically 4 years on an identical allegation however was ultimately cleared.
Like her late husband, a revered politician who died in a airplane crash in 2012, Robredo’s attraction lies in shunning the trimmings of energy. As a congresswoman, she would repeatedly journey alone by bus from her province to the capital and again, usually at night time, utilizing the lengthy journey to sleep.
Other than their electoral rivalry, Robredo and Marcos Jr. are on reverse sides of historical past.
As a scholar on the state-run College of the Philippines within the Nineteen Eighties, Robredo had joined anti-Marcos protests that culminated within the 1986 democratic rebellion.
In 2016, she narrowly defeated Marcos Jr. in a cliffhanger race for vp of their first electoral faceoff. He waged a years-long and unsuccessful authorized battle to invalidate her victory over alleged fraud and nonetheless refuses to concede.
With out the large logistics required for a presidential marketing campaign, Robredo didn’t initially plan to hunt the highest submit however modified her thoughts on the final minute final yr after Marcos Jr. introduced his candidacy, and talks to area a single opposition candidate fell aside. The emergence of marketing campaign volunteers was a lifeline, based on her allies.
“She didn’t have any equipment and it was actually the volunteers who have been energizing your entire marketing campaign,” stated Georgina Hernandez, who coordinates nationwide volunteer efforts for Robredo.
Robredo’s military of volunteers, which Hernandez says numbers near 2 million, initially engaged in all types of campaigning — from turning roadside partitions into pink-colored murals together with her portrait and mottos to offering free medical and authorized providers to operating soup kitchens for the poor.
Most, nevertheless, turned to house-to-house campaigning and organizing star-studded rallies because the election day attracts close to, she stated.
Mary Joan Buan, a volunteer campaigner who had additionally joined the 1986 revolt, stated opposing the rise of one other Marcos to the presidency many years after the dictator was ousted had develop into extra complicated given a well-funded marketing campaign to refurbish the Marcos household picture that started on social media a number of years in the past.
“Many depend on social media now and use platforms like TikTok for data so it’s doubly difficult,” Buan stated whereas going door-to-door for Robredo in a depressed Manila neighborhood. A couple of residents bluntly informed her group they have been rooting for BBM, a popularized reference to Marcos Jr. that doesn’t point out his household title.
College of the Philippines sociologist Randy David stated the uncommon and spontaneous volunteer motion that emerged for Robredo is a crimson flag for potential tyrants.
“Conventional politicians are cautious of the limitless potential of social actions to form electoral outcomes in addition to of their capability to take new types and persist past elections,” David wrote within the Philippine Every day Inquirer, a number one Manila day by day. “However it’s autocrats who worry them most — as a result of they virtually all the time carry inside them the seeds of regime change.”
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Related Press journalists Joeal Calupitan and Aaron Favila contributed to this report.
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