2022 Philippine Elections

[Newsstand] Marcos vs Robredo one-on-one debate, ASAP

John Nery

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

[Newsstand] Marcos vs Robredo one-on-one debate, ASAP
Declining to take part in a debate is the front-runner's privilege, but challenging the front-runner to a debate is part of the challenger's equity – and responsibility

As far as I can tell, from the conversion stories I’ve read or heard about or have had told to me, the weakening in Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s pre-election survey ratings can be attributed to three issues: The unpaid taxes on the estate the dictator left behind; the continuing dishonesty about his education; and the failure to take part in competitive presidential debates.

Many other issues attach to Marcos Junior’s name, especially the plunder and the human rights violations that he and his family committed during the dictatorship, but in my reading, these have been either discounted or explained away by years of pro-Marcos propaganda or outright disinformation on social media. (I regret coming to this conclusion, but that is the reality I see.)

What has gained traction in recent months is a set of three related issues. To be sure, these push factors are complemented by the pull factors of the other campaigns, especially those of Vice President Robredo’s surging, volunteer-driven movement and, for a time, from Manila Mayor Isko Moreno’s chill, plain-speaking appeal. But in terms of vulnerabilities, these three are Marcos’s weaknesses.

Whatever is the outcome of Moreno’s presidential candidacy and political career, we can credit him for raising the profile of the P203-billion estate tax scandal precisely as an issue in the middle of the campaign. When it was still clear to him that the path to victory required him to take votes away from Marcos, he belatedly but rightly focused on the P203-billion scandal. 

(His recent turn, attacking Robredo because of her current status as the main challenger to Marcos, suggests to me that he has given up on winning. Either that, or he’s using a different kind of arithmetic. I do not share in the view that he was Marcos’s stealth candidate all along – “pakawala” in pungent street-speak – but it is possible he is easing his way back to his friend’s good graces by attacking that friend’s closest challenger.)

The Marcos tax case, compounded by the serial lying from Marcos’s camp, in particular about the status of the case and the fact that it was deemed “final and executory” by the Supreme Court on January 13, 1999, has hurt the Marcos restoration drive the most. It really isn’t easy to justify why the Marcoses can choose to evade paying taxes, when millions of Filipinos do not have that power or that luxury. And Moreno played a crucial role in summing up that continuing scandal by playing up the total in tax arrears: P203 billion.

No degree

The long-running controversy over Marcos’s lack of academic degrees has also gained a foothold in the public imagination – not so much because he doesn’t have the (expensive) degree he insists he has, but because of the lying he continues to indulge in.

The Constitution does not require a presidential candidate to have a college degree, or even to have gone to school at all. Mere literacy is the requirement, together with citizenship and residence. (And I share the view that that is as it should be.)

But we do want honesty from our leaders, or at least a facsimile of it. Marcos’s continued lying, despite unequivocal statements from Oxford University, created trust issues for some ex-supporters. 

No show

Marcos’s non-appearance in the competitive debates, notably that of CNN and the two hosted by the Commission on Elections, as well as the rigorous presidential interviews conducted by leading broadcast journalist Jessica Soho of the GMA network, is the third issue that has hurt his pre-election ratings.

Cavite Govenor Jonvic Remulla, speaking on my election program “On the Campaign Trail,” acknowledged that the Marcos strategy of skipping the debates was risky. In his view, however, his principal’s continued high ratings proved that it did not hurt Marcos’s chances at all. (The interview was conducted on March 30, before the release of Pulse Asia’s March survey, which saw a four-point drop in Marcos’s rating and a nine-point spike in Robredo’s.)

But, again, based on my reading, former Marcos supporters who switched to Robredo or even Moreno frequently cite this strategy of absence as a reason for converting. They see it as a mark of cowardice, or a mark of disrespect for the voter, or a sign of Marcos’s lack of preparation for the presidency. 

It must be said that this year’s debates will not have the kind of game-changing potential that those of the 2016 elections had. In part, this is because those debates from six years ago were out of the ordinary; they were the first official debates in a quarter-century. In part, the Comelec decision in 2016 to work with the TV networks and leading newspapers created a vast viewing public (in my reckoning, the largest massed audiences in any Philippine election ever) and that proved, on hindsight, to be more effective than the 2022 decision to hire a third-party contractor to handle all the debates. 

But millions of viewers still turned out for the first Comelec debate on March 20; I don’t have the numbers yet for the April 3 debate, but I imagine that that would have added millions more. 

Nothing to lose

With the last presidential debate cancelled because of problems related to the third-party contractor, it would seem as though Marcos has survived the worst of the debate threat. Unless, that is, Robredo exercises her challenger’s privilege and challenges him to a one-on-one debate.

This is no political stunt, although it IS motivated by political objectives. It will put Marcos on the defensive, at a time when the momentum of larger rallies, house-to-house campaigns, and strategic endorsements is driving Robredo’s campaign. It attacks one of his three weaknesses. Its essence – Robredo challenging Marcos to a debate – is easily reducible to a meme, a graphic, a talking point. 

But consider: Marcos has not been tested at all in this election; he has not been openly confronted with the atrocities of his father, the paucity of his own achievement, the absurdity of his one-size-fits-all  “unity” platform. A democratic election worthy of the name demands a confrontation like this, for the benefit of the voter. 

From this perspective, Robredo has nothing to lose if, in the last two weeks of the campaign, she challenges Marcos to a one-on-one debate. From all indications, he will shirk from the challenge. But his support may well shrink too. – Rappler.com

Veteran journalist John Nery is a columnist and editorial consultant of Rappler.

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