Latest news with #ImeeMarcos
GMA Network
6 days ago
- Politics
- GMA Network
Senate OKs bill giving free funeral services for poor
The Senate on Monday approved on third and final reading the bill seeking to provide free funeral services to poor Filipino families. Senate Bill No. 2965, also known as the Free Funeral Services Act got 22 affirmative votes, zero negative vote, and zero abstention. It was sponsored by Senator Imee Marcos. The bill provides that free funeral services shall be provided to families who are in crisis situations, as determined by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), including but not limited to indigent families, or those affected by calamities, disasters, or other emergency circumstances that prevent them from affording dignified funeral services. To avail the package, the bereaved family or representative must present the following: -Valid identification card of the claimant or beneficiary; -Death certificate issued by the hospital or city/municipal health office, or certification from the tribal chieftain; =Funeral contract signed by the representative of the deceased's family, the funeral establishment, and an authorized DSWD personnel; and -Social case study prepared by any registered social worker. The DSWD shall be the lead agency in the implementation of the measure, while the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) shall monitor and regulate the current market prices of funeral services, including the price of caskets and urns, to prevent undue or excessive price increases. Aside from SB 2965, five other bills were approved on third and final reading: SB 890 or the Government Optimization Act; SB 2805 or the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board Act; and SB 2960 or the Lifelong Learning Development Framework Act. Also approved were SB 2974 or the Expanded Philippine Science High School (PSHS) System Act and SB 2975 or the Revised Animal Welfare Act. —LDF, GMA Integrated News
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Philippines Senate race a blow to President Marcos as he feuds with Vice President Duterte
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Key allies of detained former President Rodrigo Duterte and two liberal opposition candidates were among top winners in the May 12 Senate race in the Philippines, according to official results released Friday by the Election Commission. The midterm election outcome provided unexpectedly strong backing for Duterte and boosted his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, ahead of her impeachment trial in the Senate in July. The election also was a blow to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s administration, whose candidates did not do as well as expected in midterm polls when the president's influence is usually strong, analysts said. Five of the 12 Senate race winners were endorsed by Sara Duterte, including the president's sister, Imee Marcos, and Camille Villar, another Marcos alliance candidate from a wealthy political family. Five others were aligned with Marcos, while two surprise winners were from the opposition. Two Duterte allies were among the top five. Christopher Go, a former Cabinet member under the elder Duterte, led the Senate winners with more than 27 million votes. Ronald dela Rosa, Duterte's first national police chief and executor of his deadly anti-drugs campaign, ranked third. Erwin Tulfo, a news anchor and candidate from the Marcos slate who was topping pre-election surveys, only managed fourth place. Two opposition members, Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan, took second and fifth place, respectively. The election results reflected 'a vote against the administration," political analyst Ronald Llamas said, adding that it wasn't a vote for the Dutertes because many anti-Duterte candidates also won, including in the lower house of Congress. 'It's a plebiscite on the president, it's a referendum on the government and it looks like they lost there,' Llamas said. Marcos teamed with Sara Duterte to win the 2022 general elections, but their partnership soured over political differences that led to her impeachment in February and her father's subsequent arrest and handover to the ICC. Marcos can't seek re-election as the president is limited to a single six-year term. Sara Duterte is seen as a strong presidential candidate for 2028 elections but will be barred from office for life if convicted by the Senate. She was impeached on a raft of charges including alleged misuse of public funds and plotting to assassinate Marcos. She had said the impeachment was a political assassination. To be acquitted, she needs the votes of at least nine of 24 senators. At least two other senators who were not part of the elections were seen as supporters of the vice president. Other senators may support her acquittal depending on public opinion during the trial, political pressure from the administration and perceived political benefits, Llamas said. 'Definitely Sara gained in the election in her fight against impeachment,' Llamas said. 'The impeachment will be uphill but not impossible.' Rodrigo Duterte was elected as mayor of Davao City, his stronghold, with a landslide despite being detained thousands of miles away in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, since March. He is awaiting trial for crimes against humanity related to his war on illegal drugs that left thousands of suspects dead during his presidency from 2016 to 2022. Under Philippine law, candidates facing criminal charges, including those in detention, can run for office unless they have been convicted and have exhausted all appeals. Kristina Conti, an assistant to counsel at the ICC, has said the court also is investigating Dela Rosa and Go for their role in the drug war.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Philippines has voted - now the game of thrones begin again
As the noise and colour of a two-month election campaign subsides, a game of thrones between the two most powerful families in the Philippines resumes. President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for power. As allies they won a landslide victory in the last presidential election in 2022. But as their relationship has fractured - he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him - this mid-term election has become a critical barometer of the strength of these two political dynasties. And the results were not great news for the Marcos camp. Typically incumbent presidents in the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected in the mid-term election. The power of presidential patronage is a significant advantage, at least it has been in the past. But not this time. Only six of the twelve winning senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of those one, Camille Villar, is only half in his camp, as she also accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte. Four of the senators are in the Duterte camp, including the president's sister Imee Marcos. Two were in the top three vote-winners, ahead of any Marcos candidate. For a sitting president, this is a poor result. Senators are elected on a simple, nationwide vote, which is a good indication of national opinion. The result could weaken the authority of the Marcos administration in the last three years of his term, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching her. The Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating almost since the start of their administration three years ago. But it was only this year that it ruptured completely. The decision by the president's allies in Congress to start impeaching the vice-president was the first irreparable breach. Then in March President Marcos sent Sara's father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal war on drugs. The police have also now filed criminal charges against her. The gloves were off. Impeachment would result in Sara Duterte being barred from public office, ending her ambition to replace President Marcos at the next election. Right now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if successful, she would use the power of the presidency to seek vengeance against the Marcos's. But impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered so much to both camps. Politics in the Philippines is a family business. Once a family achieves political power, it holds onto it, and passes it around the various generations. While there are around 200 influential families, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit at the top of the pyramid. The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The current president's father ruled from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial law, and plundering billions of dollars from the national purse. Bongbong Marcos' mother, Imelda, who at the age of 95 cast her vote in this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and not just for her shoe collection. His sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, thanks to her decision to defect to the Duterte camp. His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the lower house and a likely presidential candidate in 2028 - probably the reason why Bongbong Marcos was so keen to drive through the impeachment of Sara Duterte. In the president's home province of Ilocos Norte, his wife's cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two other cousins elected as city councillors. Up there, Marcoses always win. Much the same is true of the Dutertes in their stronghold in Davao at the other end of the country. Even from his prison cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and won easily, even though all voters got to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout. His absence will not matter though, because the previous mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor's job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the last 37 years. The problem confronting both camps is that the senators also typically come from big political families, or are celebrities in their own right – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background. They have interests and ambitions of their own. Even if officially allied with one camp or the other, there is no guarantee they will stay loyal, especially on the issue of impeachment. "Senators in the Philippines are very sensitive to national public opinion, because they imagine themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting," says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Research, which monitors public opinion. "So, they are always trying to read the public mind, and side with public opinion because of their future political ambitions." In recent months public sentiment has not been on the president's side. Bongbong Marcos has never been a good public speaker, and his stage appearances in the campaign did little to lift his flagging popularity. His management of the economy, which is struggling, gets low marks in opinion polls, and his decision to detain former President Duterte and send him to the International Criminal Court is being portrayed by the Duterte family as a national betrayal. At an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila's port area, Sara Duterte played an emotionally-charged video of the moment her father was taken into custody at Manila's international airport and put on a private jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable treatment of a still popular former president. "They didn't just kidnap my dad, they stole him from us," she told the cheering crowd. Also on stage was President Marcos's elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – though most observers view this as a cynical move to capitalise on Duterte popular support, so she could lift her own flagging campaign to retain her senate seat. It worked. From polling low through much of the campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the "magic twelve", as they call the winning senators. What happens now is difficult to predict, but the Marcos camp certainly faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached. Bongbong Marcos: The Philippine president battling the Dutertes Sara Duterte: The 'alpha' VP who picked a fight with Philippines' president Of the 24 senators, only a handful are automatically loyal to the president. The rest will have to be persuaded to go along with it, , and that won't be easy. This election has shown that the Dutertes still have very strong public support in some areas, and some in the Marcos election alliance are already on record as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The same goes for the 12 senators who were not up for election this year. One bright spot for the president could be the surprise election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, both from the liberal wing of politics. Few polls had predicted their wins, which suggest a public desire for politicians outside the Marcos-Duterte feud. Neither is a friend of the Marcos clan – liberals were the main opposition to the Marcos-Duterte team in the 2022 election. But they were strongly opposed to the strongman style of former President Duterte, and may fear his pugnacious daughter becoming president in 2028. That may be enough to get them to vote for impeachment. The impeachment trial is expected to start in July. The Dutertes can be expected to continue chipping away at the president's battered authority in public, and both camps will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their side. No president or vice-president has ever been successfully impeached in the Philippines. Nor have any president and vice president ever fallen out so badly. It is going to be a turbulent year. Not enough power to share: The political feud behind Rodrigo Duterte's downfall Death threats and division: A political feud takes a dramatic turn
BBC News
13-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Phlippines election result: The votes are in - now the game of thrones between Marcos and Duterte begins again
As the noise and colour of a two-month election campaign subsides, a game of thrones between the two most powerful families in the Philippines Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr, and his Vice-President, Sara Duterte, are embroiled in a bitter feud, and a battle for power. As allies they won a landslide victory in the last presidential election in 2022. But as their relationship has fractured - he accusing her of threatening to assassinate him, she accusing him of incompetence and saying she dreamed of decapitating him - this mid-term election has become a critical barometer of the strength of these two political the results were not great news for the Marcos camp. Typically incumbent presidents in the Philippines get most of their picks for the senate elected in the mid-term election. The power of presidential patronage is a significant advantage, at least it has been in the past. But not this six of the twelve winning senators are from the Marcos alliance, and of those one, Camille Villar, is only half in his camp, as she also accepted endorsement from Sara Duterte. Four of the senators are in the Duterte camp, including the president's sister Imee Marcos. Two were in the top three vote-winners, ahead of any Marcos candidate. For a sitting president, this is a poor result. Senators are elected on a simple, nationwide vote, which is a good indication of national opinion. The result could weaken the authority of the Marcos administration in the last three years of his term, and it casts doubt on the plan to incapacitate Sara Duterte by impeaching Marcos-Duterte relationship has been deteriorating almost since the start of their administration three years ago. But it was only this year that it ruptured completely. The decision by the president's allies in Congress to start impeaching the vice-president was the first irreparable breach. Then in March President Marcos sent Sara's father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to the International Criminal Court to face charges of crimes against humanity over his brutal war on drugs. The police have also now filed criminal charges against gloves were off. Impeachment would result in Sara Duterte being barred from public office, ending her ambition to replace President Marcos at the next election. Right now she is the frontrunner, and few doubt that, if successful, she would use the power of the presidency to seek vengeance against the Marcos' impeachment requires two thirds of the 24-seat senate to vote for it, which is why this mid-term election mattered so much to both camps. Politics in the Philippines is a family business. Once a family achieves political power, it holds onto it, and passes it around the various generations. While there are around 200 influential families, the Dutertes and Marcoses sit at the top of the pyramid. The Marcoses have been in politics for 80 years. The current president's father ruled from 1965 to 1986, imposing martial law, and plundering billions of dollars from the national purse. Bongbong Marcos' mother, Imelda, who at the age of 95 cast her vote in this election from a wheelchair, is an even more notorious figure, and not just for her shoe sister Imee has been re-elected to the senate, thanks to her decision to defect to the Duterte camp. His eldest son Sandro is a congressman, and his cousin Martin Romualdez is speaker of the lower house and a likely presidential candidate in 2028 - probably the reason why Bongbong Marcos was so keen to drive through the impeachment of Sara Duterte. In the president's home province of Ilocos Norte, his wife's cousin has been elected governor, his nephew elected vice-governor, and two other cousins elected as city councillors. Up there, Marcoses always the same is true of the Dutertes in their stronghold in Davao at the other end of the country. Even from his prison cell in The Hague, former President Duterte ran for mayor of Davao, and won easily, even though all voters got to see of him was a life-size cardboard cutout. His absence will not matter though, because the previous mayor was his son Sebastian, who now takes over the vice-mayor's job. Dutertes have been mayors of Davao for 34 out of the last 37 problem confronting both camps is that the senators also typically come from big political families, or are celebrities in their own right – many candidates come from a media or showbiz background. They have interests and ambitions of their own. Even if officially allied with one camp or the other, there is no guarantee they will stay loyal, especially on the issue of impeachment."Senators in the Philippines are very sensitive to national public opinion, because they imagine themselves as vice presidents or presidents in-waiting," says Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist who runs WR Numero Research, which monitors public opinion."So, they are always trying to read the public mind, and side with public opinion because of their future political ambitions." In recent months public sentiment has not been on the president's side. Bongbong Marcos has never been a good public speaker, and his stage appearances in the campaign did little to lift his flagging popularity. His management of the economy, which is struggling, gets low marks in opinion polls, and his decision to detain former President Duterte and send him to the International Criminal Court is being portrayed by the Duterte family as a national an impromptu rally in Tondo, a low-income neighbourhood in Manila's port area, Sara Duterte played an emotionally-charged video of the moment her father was taken into custody at Manila's international airport and put on a private jet to The Hague. She portrayed this as unforgivable treatment of a still popular former president. "They didn't just kidnap my dad, they stole him from us," she told the cheering crowd. Also on stage was President Marcos's elder sister Imee, who disagreed with the extradition and jumped ship to the Duterte camp – though most observers view this as a cynical move to capitalise on Duterte popular support, so she could lift her own flagging campaign to retain her senate seat. It worked. From polling low through much of the campaign, Imee Marcos managed to scrape into the "magic twelve", as they call the winning happens now is difficult to predict, but the Marcos camp certainly faces an uphill battle to get Sara Duterte impeached. Of the 24 senators, only a handful are automatically loyal to the president. The rest will have to be persuaded to go along with it, , and that won't be easy. This election has shown that the Dutertes still have very strong public support in some areas, and some in the Marcos election alliance are already on record as saying they oppose impeaching the vice-president. The same goes for the 12 senators who were not up for election this bright spot for the president could be the surprise election of senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan, both from the liberal wing of politics. Few polls had predicted their wins, which suggest a public desire for politicians outside the Marcos-Duterte feud. Neither is a friend of the Marcos clan – liberals were the main opposition to the Marcos-Duterte team in the 2022 election. But they were strongly opposed to the strongman style of former President Duterte, and may fear his pugnacious daughter becoming president in 2028. That may be enough to get them to vote for impeachment trial is expected to start in July. The Dutertes can be expected to continue chipping away at the president's battered authority in public, and both camps will be lobbying furiously behind the scenes to get senators onto their president or vice-president has ever been successfully impeached in the Philippines. Nor have any president and vice president ever fallen out so badly. It is going to be a turbulent year.
CNA
10-05-2025
- Politics
- CNA
Commentary: As Filipinos prepare to vote, ex-president Rodrigo Duterte's arrest is dividing families
BANGKOK: It's been two months since former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested and handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face potential prosecution for crimes against humanity. Duterte's arrest has angered his supporters and caused polarisation to worsen in the lead-up to important parliamentary elections on May 12. The election could be a referendum on the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, whose approval rating fell to 25 per cent in March after Duterte's arrest. It had been 42 per cent a month earlier. Duterte's daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, meanwhile, has seen her approval rating increase to 59 per cent, despite the fact she was impeached by the House of Representatives earlier this year for threatening to assassinate Marcos. Some of Marcos' former allies are now drifting towards Sara Duterte, potentially setting her up for a successful run for the presidency herself in 2028. FAMILY FEUDING Marcos is not only dealing with the resentment of some segments of the public, he's also facing a challenge from his own sister, Imee Marcos, a senator. Imee Marcos conducted several hearings in the Senate to probe into the procedures followed by the national police and other government agencies in implementing Duterte's arrest warrant, which had been issued through Interpol. Right from the start, she denounced Duterte's surrender to the ICC as a violation of the Philippine constitution and the country's sovereignty. She asserted the court did not have jurisdiction over the Philippines after it withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2019. In a press conference on Apr 29, Imee Marcos announced a Senate committee is recommending the filing of criminal charges against the head of the Department of Justice and other officials who arrested and turned him over to the ICC. On May 7, the ombudsman asked these officials to respond to the Senate committee complaint within 10 days. Imee Marcos has political motivations of her own for acting in this way. She is seeking another term herself and has been trailing in public opinion polls. To make the political machinations even more complex, Sara Duterte has now endorsed Imee Marcos' bid for re-election. Some of Duterte's supporters, however, have been sceptical about Marcos' motives in conducting the hearings. CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE Though Duterte's arrest has dominated the headlines in the Philippines, it's unclear whether Marcos' declining popularity as president is tied solely to this incident. Many Filipinos supported Duterte's arrest, according to one poll in March. And Marcos' government has also been criticised for the state of the economy. But at least one observer has pointed to the Duterte family's effective use of TikTok to control the narrative around his arrest, portraying it as a kidnapping. Sara Duterte has recently claimed her name is on the ICC prosecutor's list of those who will be arrested next. It is also important to note Duterte's supporters have resorted to the dissemination of fake news and disinformation against the Marcos administration. His supporters have also aimed their attacks on the ICC pre-trial judges, as well as victims of the drugs war during Duterte's time in office. THE 2028 PRESIDENTIAL RACE The outcome of the elections in the Philippines next week will no doubt have short- and medium-term implications for the country's politics. First, if all nine of the Senate candidates backed by the Marcos administration win, they would expand his bloc of supporters in the chamber. This bloc may then vote to convict Sara Duterte when her impeachment case moves to a Senate trial. If she's convicted, she would be banned from running for president in 2028. But it's uncertain if two-thirds of senators would vote to convict – the threshold necessary for impeachment. Some pro-Marcos and independent senators may be wary of antagonising loyal Duterte supporters. If Sara Duterte is acquitted, this would likely only boost her bid for the presidency. The ICC's pre-trial chamber will hold a hearing in September that will be watched closely by pro- and anti-Duterte forces in the Philippines. On May 8, the chamber rejected a petition filed by Duterte's defence team to excuse two judges over alleged bias. His loyal supporters will likely increase their attacks against the ICC, the victims of Duterte's drugs war, and the Marcos administration through the use of fake news and disinformation as the trial progresses. If Duterte is convicted by the court prior to the 2028 election, it will certainly be used as a campaign issue by both sides, too. And this will only further worsen polarisation in the Philippines.
