Marcos vs Duterte War of words heats up Philippines midterm polls campaign

MANILA – The Philippine mid-term polls in May were supposed to be a race for the Senate and thousands of local posts. But a month into the campaign season, the toughest showdown is being waged not among the candidates, but by two very vocal figures.

The 2025 election has become a proxy battle between incumbent President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, 67, and his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, 79. The populist leaders have been exchanging attacks in speeches meant to endorse their respective senatorial slates.

At stake is the future of their dynastic clans.

Mr Duterte’s daughter, Ms Sara Duterte, was impeached as vice-president by Marcos-allied lawmakers less than a week before the Feb 11 start of the official campaign period for the polls, seen as a referendum on the Marcos presidency. Ms Duterte’s impeachment trial will start when a new Congress convenes in July.

Filipinos will vote for 12 out of 24 Senate seats in May, while the rest will be contested in the 2028 polls. There are also more than 300 congressmen and thousands of local officials in every province, city and town contesting the election.

Mr Marcos fired the opening salvo against the Dutertes at the campaign kick-off rally of the administration-backed senatorial bets in the northern Philippine city of Laoag in Ilocos Norte, his family’s stronghold.

Facing a 20,000-strong crowd in an arena filled with supporters clad in red shirts, Mr Marcos said that a vote for his anointed candidates is also a vote against the return of the “bloody, corrupt and pro-China” regime of Mr Duterte.

“No Filipino wants to go back to that kind of governance. That is why you can be sure that when our candidates are elected to the Senate... they will not participate in these kinds of policies that we have left behind and