🇵🇭 An empty podium stands-in for Marcos Jr

Other candidates attack on tax

March 22, 2022

Hello friends!

A quick look today at some impressions from the Philippines, where would-be presidents (mostly) faced off on Saturday at the Commission on Elections-organised debate. Here, I mostly write on Bongbong Marcos, but I strongly encourage the clicking through of links because the Manila press pack has, as always, done a fantastic job covering the ins and outs of the debate. I’ll be back with a longer look at Leni Robredo shortly, but that’s not quite as time-sensitive!

Will probably also have a look at vice president candidate Walden Bello soon, because he does a real ‘the emperor isn’t wearing clothes!’ thing that I LOVE. 

See you Friday,Erin Cook

 

The absence of Bongbong meant the candidates could lay into him about his family’s alleged withholding of taxes without much defence — not that there have been compelling defences offered elsewhere. 

The Bureau of Internal Revenue has confirmed it notified the Marcos clan last December of an outstanding P203 billion (around US$3.4b) in estate taxes. Questions have dogged Marcos Jr on the campaign trail, with other candidates vowing to chase down the funds if elected, but few answers have been forthcoming. 

Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson, who is running in tandem with VP candidate and senate colleague Tito Sotto, noted that tax reforms under President Rodrigo Duterte have managed to net just a fraction of the outstanding amount. 

Manila Mayor Isko Moreno and incumbent VP Leni Robredo both tied the billions to popular but under-funded policies. “I just want to follow up on what Ka Leody said about where we will get the money for the aid for farmers struggling with the high prices of fertilizer. You can count on me, that I will see to it that we will collect the P203-billion estate tax from a certain family. I will collect that and give it to the farmers and drivers as aid, to those who need aid badly,” Moreno said, referring to labour activist Leody de Guzman’s fertiliser policy, as reported by Inquirer. 

Robredo was equally as blunt.

“We are arguing over suspending the excise tax even if fuel prices are so high, because we don’t have money. We are having second thoughts over the revenues the government will lose. We will only give P200 in aid, which is measly. This P200 billion, if we collect this, will allow us not to scrimp anymore on our countrymen,” she said, via The Inquirer. 

The weekend’s Comelec debate wasn’t the first dodge by the BBM team. The ‘debate-averse’ candidate, as the Philippine Star has dubbed him, also declined to appear at last month’s CNN Philippines debate, as well as other events launched by media. Instead, he prefers events arranged by his team or friendly organisations, including by Apollo Quiboloy, the influential and extraordinarily controversial pastor closely tied to Duterte. 

 

Does a no-show even matter? Analysts and election officials have suggested that an absence could be seen by voters as an indication that a candidate is not able or willing to defend themselves against questioning. That’s certainly how it reads to me on the surface, but the Philippines is blessed with many brilliant thinkers who have been looking at the impact of social media on its politics and that changes the equation. 

Fatima Gaw, a digital cultures researcher at the University of the Philippines, has an interesting thread on Twitter today which speaks to that trend:

 Marcos Jr doesn’t need an officially sanctioned debate in which he may be held to account by his fellow candidates, not when the machine has worked relentlessly for years to undermine trust in media and politics in the country. As COVID-19 restrictions change the rules on how campaigning works this season, the relevance of the online structures is heightened on even 2016. “The significance of social media now has been exponential,” Fatima Gaw says in this Reuters piece (I really like her work, okay!). 

What strikes me a lot here is that while the other candidates who have tipped their hat into the race attended the debate with big ideas on COVID recovery and improving lives across the country, the absence of Marcos Jr is the story. This is the case for both myself specifically, but also for much of the analysis — there has been some fantastic reporting from local media on the debate itself, of course — which is, I think, a testament to how completely ahead Marcos Jr is in the polls. 

Further reading

“Social media platforms should be made accountable because they are housing disinformation,” Vice President and opposition leader Leni Robredo said in the debate.

Retired boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, who is also running for president, said creators of fake news should be punished.

Another candidate, Manila city mayor Francisco Domagoso, also said social media firms should be held accountable for allowing fake accounts on their platforms.

Saturday's debate covered the nine candidates' economic agenda and pandemic response plan. As COVID-19 cases have eased at home, the Philippines has moved to reopen the economy, lifting quarantine requirements for vaccinated foreign tourists and ordering over a million outsourcing employees to return to the office next month to generate business activity.

But COVID-19 flare-ups in other Asian countries such as China have prompted candidates to call for improved pandemic response, even as their own campaign rallies, experts warned, could become superspreader events.

According to a survey by research organisation Social Weather Stations, 50 per cent of respondents said they would pick Marcos and only 19 per cent would choose Robredo.

Political strategist Alan German, president of Agents International Public Relations, said Marcos’ ratings are high because of the disinformation the Marcos family have spread on vast online networks.

“They’ve been at it a long time, they’ve had the advantage of time. They’ve been propagating their very well oiled social media machinery.”

The main issue with Marcos junior is that he is the only son and namesake of the brutal dictator whose 14-year martial law regime tortured and murdered thousands of Filipinos.

Dubbed “RoSa,” a portmanteau of “Robredo” and “Sara,” the group calls itself a “volunteer-driven people’s campaign” with Albay 2nd District Representative Joey Salceda as lead convenor. Salceda, a veteran in Philippine politics and elections, was the first national official to publicly endorse a Robredo-Duterte tandem. 

Robredo’s running mate is Senator Kiko Pangilinan of the Liberal Party (LP). Robredo is chairman of the once ruling LP but filed her candidacy as an independent. Duterte, meanwhile, is the vice presidential candidate of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and are members of the “Uniteam,” a coalition of the biggest and oldest names in Philippine politics. 

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