CAVITE, Philippines – At a covered court in Tagaytay City, barangay or village officials wore red to send off presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr and running mate Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte to their grand rally in General Trias on Tuesday, March 22.

It’s a display of the local machinery that the Remullas can give to Marcos and Duterte in the second most vote-rich province in the Philippines that has 2.3 million voters.

In the grand rally in General Trias, 80,000 people showed up, according to the conservative estimate of police on the ground, or 100,000 according to the chief of police of General Trias. “Marami po kasi ang hindi nakapasok (Many were not able to enter),“ Colonel Norman Tabaldo Rañon told Rappler.

Marcos previously held a motorcade in Cavite on February 11, which was also when Governor Juanito “Jonvic” Remulla Jr. pledged his full support for the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The Remulla patriarch, the late longtime governor Juanito Remulla Sr., was a staunch ally of the dictator.

“I asked them to come back. Cavite has something to prove,” Governor Remulla said after the rally at the General Trias Sports Complex, the same venue of Vice President Leni Robredo’s rally on March 4, which was attended by an estimated 47,000 supporters.

In that rally, which helped boost the ground momentum that the Robredo camp needed, her supporters pledged that they will work hard to make sure it’s not going to be a repeat of 2016, when Marcos edged her out here by 152,544 in the vice presidential race.

In response, Remulla on Tuesday promised that the 800,000 votes he earlier pledged to Marcos would not be his total votes, but in fact the margin. Is he that confident? “Yabang lang ‘yun! (That’s just cockiness), but we will get there,” Remulla said.

Marcos has also been wooing the influential One Cebu party to his side for the votes from Cebu, the country’s biggest voting population with 3.29 million voters. But Remulla declared that Cavite is more significant.

“Cavite is the epicenter of politics in the Philippines. Where Cavite goes, the country goes, so it has to start here,” said Remulla. President Rodrigo Duterte won in Cavite in the 2016 presidential race by a margin of more than 260,000 votes over the candidate who came in second in the province, Senator Grace Poe.

‘Not a pissing contest’

“It’s not a pissing contest,” said Remulla when asked if the reason he wanted Marcos to return to Cavite was because of Robredo’s massive rally here.

Still, he was determined to show they topped what the Robredo campaign was able to muster, even estimating there were 40,000 other people not counted in the sports complex estimate.

But didn’t his brother, Cavite 7th District Congressman Boying Remulla, doubt Robredo’s 47,000 turnout by saying that the sports complex – the same venue of the Marcos-Duterte grand rally – could not hold that many people? How can it hold 80,000 to 100,000 now?

“He’s (Boying) not the expert in crowd estimates. PNP (Philippine National Police) clearly stated the crowd was 3x the Leni-Kiko rally,” said Remulla.

The Marcos-Duterte rally coincided with a special non-working holiday in Cavite. Malacañang on March 8 declared March 22 a holiday in Cavite for the birth anniversary of former president Emilio Aguinaldo.

Governor Jonvic Remulla says the crowd estimate for tonight’s Uniteam rally is 100k. Why did Uniteam come back? “Cavite had something to prove.” pic.twitter.com/uFdvZ01zy4

— Lian Buan (@lianbuan) March 22, 2022

Cheating and offenses

At the Tuesday rally, Marcos alluded to fears of election cheating – something that his camp has recently been floating. Senator Imee Marcos, chairperson of the Senate electoral reforms committee, has claimed that the tech provider for the polls, Smartmatic, has had a security breach – a claim denied both by the company and the Commission on Elections. Marcos’ spokesperson Vic Rodriguez said they intend “to be vigilant in light of the growing rumors of possible poll fraud.”

In General Trias, Marcos said he would send coffee to the crowd on election day so they can be alert, in reference to the 2016 count when Robredo overtook him overnight. The Supreme Court had unanimously junked Marcos’ electoral protest against Robredo.

The crowd chanted: Hindi kami papayag na dayain ka! (We will not allow you to be cheated)

The crowd was also repeatedly chanting “hindi kami bayad!,” that they were not paid, even though earlier that day Remulla gave crisp P1,000 bills to rally participants in Dasmariñas. Remulla said this was not an election offense because none of the national candidates were on stage yet when it happened.

Two election lawyers told Rappler that the vote buying provision in the election code is clear that any person who gives money to induce someone to vote for a candidate is an election offense, regardless if the candidate was present or not.

Nonetheless, the Uniteam got what they wanted in Cavite on Tuesday. If Robredo likes to say, “Ipanalo na natin ‘to (let’s go and win this),” the Marcos-Duterte supporters chanted loud and clear: “Panalo ka na!” (You have won).

There are 47 days left in the campaign.

– Rappler.com