6 Takeaways from the 2022 Philippine Presidential Elections

 

I have 6 takeaways from the election of 2022. Here they are in no particular order:

1. United we stand, divided we fall. 

The unity of the Marcos and Duterte forces sealed the deal, after Sara settled for the vice presidency. They seemed to have heeded the warning of the 1992 elections. In that year, Imelda Marcos and Danding Cojuangco both ran for president, splitting the loyalist vote in the process. Their combined votes outnumbered the eventual winner Fidel Ramos. If they had put up a united slate, then they would have re-taken Malacanang a mere six years after fleeing in haste. If both Sara and Bongbong had stood for the presidency, they might have been defeated by Vice President Robredo. It was not meant to be as the opposition was fragmented and bitterly divided.

2. Automated polling has matured. 

None of the fears of massive cheating materialised. Despite the stalled voting in several polling places due to malfunctioning machines, the vote count and transmission went smoothly for the most part. By Tuesday morning, right after the polls, the results were known. After administering automated polling over five election cycles, the Comelec and its contractor seems to have mastered how to do it effectively and securely.

3. Public opinion polls were right. 

The  pre-election poll results by Pulse Asia, Social Weather Station, and other reputable outfits accurately predicted the outcome of the election. There were few surprises in the night. What happened in 2016 with Duterte coming from behind, in defiance of the polls, may have been a one-off. The science and professionalism of the reputable polling firms has been reaffirmed. 

4. The popularity of Duterte’s government mattered. 

In an age of moral panics and outrage over social problems such as illicit drugs, criminality and moral decay from ideologies based on identity, most voters opted to go for continuity rather than change. A poll conducted prior to the election found that 50 per cent of likely voters preferred a continuation of Duterte’s policies but with a lighter touch. This is where most presidential candidates positioned themselves. 

The vice president herself promised to continue the “war on drugs” but with a different emphasis on treatment. Others were seen as “Duterte-lite”. While they crowded in this lane, a third of all likely voters preferred the unadulterated version of Duterte’s policies. Bongbong had them all to himself. The mere association between Marcos Sr’s martial rule with that of Duterte’s iron fist was enough for voters to equate Marcos Jr with continuity.

5. Change is still coming. 

The seeming opposite of 4, and comically reflective of an episode of Veep, the message “Continuity with Change” was very much in the air. Bongbong stole the opposition’s thunder early on by claiming the mantle of change, while running with the daughter of the incumbent. People still saw the opposition as tired, old, and out of ideas. After 35 years of being scapegoated for the ills of Philippine society, Marcos became reinvented as a break with the narrative of EDSA that had dominated the airwaves and textbooks since 1986.

6. He who controls the past, controls the future; he who controls the present controls the past. 

This Orwellian quote from the novel 1984 is really what this election was fought over. To the victor not only go the spoils of incumbency, but also the pen with which to write, or in Marcos Jr’s case, rewrite history. The Marcoses always suffered a handicap due to the fact that the post-EDSA regime got to tell history from its perspective. Since the election of Duterte in 2016 that narrative has been challenged. Marcos Jr’s loss in 2016 was a kind of blessing in disguise in that he had the luxury of time to build a social media presence to take control of the narrative.

He was able through this to redefine his past and rebrand the Marcoses with a new image that appealed to new voters with no lived experience of his father’s rule. The fact that his opponents condemned it as historical revisionism only raised its mystery and appeal. Once he assumes the presidency, he will have the power to make the Marcoses’ version of events official. And that is perhaps worth more than its weight in gold.