Philippine Elections 2022: Why Leni’s Fifteen Million Votes Were Not Enough

Marcos Sr. was also responsible for a wide range of human rights abuses during the martial law period from 1972 to 1981, his widow Imelda is out on bail while she appeals a 42-year jail sentence, and Bongbong himself stands accused of large-scale tax evasion. Much media coverage has stressed the online sphere: the Marcos campaign successfully promoted disinformation about the martial law period, falsely portraying it as a golden era of economic prosperity and social order, and presented the lacklustre Bongbong's presidential candidacy in an extremely positive light, through highly misleading and selective representations of the facts. In a very detailed analysis along these lines, Aries Arugay and Keith Baquisal demonstrate that Philippine elections are highly vulnerable to disinformation and social media manipulation.3 A second set of arguments focuses on how the election worked on the ground, notably the ways electoral alliances are constructed in presidential campaigns, which rely on powerful local and regional brokers, often entrenched political dynasties, to lend support to national candidates. Leni had been encouraged to run for the presidency by lSambayan (One Nation), a left-liberal coalition spearheaded by former Supreme Court justice Antonio Carpio, with the aim of thwarting Bongbong Marcos' presidential ambitions.