ILOCOS NORTE, Philippines – For the first time in a long time, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. stood on a campaign stage in his home province that is now fully controlled by his family — the provincial capitol, the two congressional districts, the city.
It was neophyte congressman Sandro Marcos, the President’s soon to be 31-year-old son, who wiped out the remaining opposition — the Fariñases — in the 2022 elections, when he defeated the incumbent representative of the second district at the time, Ria Fariñas. The Fariñas patriarch, former congressman Rodolfo Fariñas, made a last-minute decision to run for governor but was also crushed at the polls by the incumbent, 36-year-old Matthew Marcos Manotoc.
Today, the third-generation Fariñases occupy local posts too inconsequential to provide a check of the absolute power that the President’s family now wields here.
The three years that followed the last elections happened too fast, Marcos said in Filipino, as he kicked off the administration’s senatorial campaign on Tuesday, February 11, at the packed Centennial Arena in Laoag City. Here we are again on the campaign trail, he noted.
Longtime residents of the city recalled how, for decades, the province accommodated the peaceful co-existence of the two families that shared power geographically: the Fariñases had controlled the city and the first district’s northern towns while the Marcoses ran the province and the second district. “Now that balance is gone,” rued a landowner.
To recap: Matthew Manotoc, eldest son of presidential sister and reelectionist senator Imee Marcos, is governor while his aunt, Cecilia Araneta-Marcos, who was married to the President’s late uncle, Mariano “Nonong” Marcos II, is the vice governor. The second district that used to be held by former first lady Imelda Marcos is now represented by a nephew, Angelo Marcos Barba, son of the late youngest sister of dictator president Ferdinand E. Marcos. The mayor of Laoag City, Michael Marcos Keon, is a son of the late president’s other sister, Elizabeth.
Everyone’s running for reelection in May except for Matthew and Cecilia who decided to swap posts. While still qualified to run for a third term and final term, Matthew slid down to be a vice gubernatorial bet, leaving his aunt Cecilia to run for governor.
There are two versions as to why Matthew opted out of the gubernatorial race. One is the most feasible, at least to those who know him: Matthew ran for governor in 2019 just to please his mother Imee. But now he wants a break and to get married. But Laoag’s chattering political class said it’s a ploy by his mother so that by 2028, instead of Matthew gunning for his last term as governor, he would be running from a clean slate — as a first-term governor again.
Whatever it is, Matthew and Cecilia are sure winners in the race.
Dumping their cousin
Which cannot be said of the other member of the Marcos family, Michael Keon, who is running for his last term as Laoag City mayor. The Marcoses are rooting for his rival, first-term councilor and longtime contractor Bryan Alcid.
It’s not the first time that the Marcoses are dumping their cousin for the mayoral race. In 2022, they announced their support for Keon’s rival, Vicentito “Toto” Lazo, who eventually landed a miserable third in the race (with former mayor Chevylle Fariñas landing a close second).
The city is a constant irritant for the Marcoses, like a prized catch that they cannot completely have. Because while Keon is a Marcos, distrust in and dislike of him is shared both by the President, the First Lady, and her estranged sister-in-law Imee, according to local officials and government employees here.
It’s not lost on residents that Keon himself had dared to run against Imee in a previous gubernatorial campaign, which he lost. In 2022, it was Imee who encouraged Lazo and bankrolled his mayoral bid against Keon, prompting the Marcos cousin to say he’d been “walking a road of treachery.” Keon would be vindicated as he trounced Lazo, though political operators are insisting that the Marcoses junked Lazo in the end in favor of Keon.
Yet, for these elections, Keon is again being thrown under the bus by his cousins.
In October last year, no less than the First Couple went out of their way to join Keon’s opponent and his slate when they filed their certificates of candidacy. Alcid was ecstatic, noting that the President’s physical presence was “historic” and that “I did not expect that all of them would come.”
Sandro said then that they were doing this because they were “disappointed” with how Keon had been running city hall. Sounding like the provincial patron, the President’s son asked voters to “put their trust in me, put their trust in the Marcos family for the candidacies of mayor and vice mayor.”
A Filipino-Chinese entrepreneur and contractor, Alcid and his family have won the biggest local government contracts for decades. Fariñas allies said Alcid used to be a staunch supporter of longtime governor Rodolfo Fariñas, until he lost power.
Would Keon defeat his cousins’ moneyed candidate once again, especially now that his arch enemy, Imee Marcos, is focused on her senatorial campaign? If Keon’s camp is to be believed, he enjoys the backing of former first lady Imelda Marcos.
Imee’s Senate run
A priest recalled how involved Imee was in the 2022 elections here when manang, as she is referred to by Ilokanos, did not have a campaign to run. She handpicked each town’s top tandems, brokered alliances, offered financial aid to candidates, gifted parishes and villages, and harangued those not on her side.
The senator is not as immersed now given a tight Senate race. She’s been hanging by a thread in the surveys until the one held in January, when she showed signs of recovery. Some campaign veterans have attributed her fickle numbers to her open rift with her brother on key issues.
Wrote Joey Salgado in this piece: “None of her obstructionist moves have endeared Senator Marcos to both the supporters of President Marcos and Vice President Duterte.” The problem, Salgado added, “is not the lack of visibility but what she has been saying and doing. For a senator who is the elder sister of an incumbent president, Senator Marcos has been acting in an unsisterly manner.”
While invited to the administration’s Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas senatorial slate, Imee refused to be a part of it. Thus, the first campaign ad that was rolled out on the eve of the February 11 kickoff excluded her. So when Marcos decided to hold the opening salvo of the campaign in Laoag, the question was: Would Imee attend?
She did. And she addressed head-on the talk about sibling squabble.
In a red pantsuit and high heels and speaking in truncated Ilokano from written notes, Imee said she was hurt by talks that she’s been picking fights with the President. She said she just needed to remind him from time to time because “I do not like it when my brother is taken advantage of.” Family squabbles, after all, are normal, she said, reminding voters that “I’m a Marcos…. Let’s set aside our misunderstandings, and listen to Filipinos who are hungry.”
Yet, manang can’t help it.
Local politicians noticed another stress point in the family: Imee did not acknowledge her cousin Angelo Barba, the unopposed reelectionist congressman of the second district, in her campaign speech. There’s apparent unease between the two because Barba had initially wanted to deploy his chosen candidate — not Imee’s favored one — for mayor of San Nicolas, where Barba is.
Is Imee worried that the tension in the family would affect her votes in the province? She has plastered nearly every corner of the province with her campaign posters — almost like a screaming presence that some say she need not do in her own turf.
Residents we’ve talked to say that the Imee-Liza rift is common knowledge here long before the elections. It’s fodder for various forms of intrigue going into the elections — from speculation that the First Lady would give Imee a dose of her own medicine by moving to dump her in the senatorial races to talk about how Imee is rightly placed to be protective of the President because of the alleged machinations of Speaker Martin Romualdez and the First Lady. The elders’ infighting does not show in their children, though, they added. Matthew and Sandro seem to get along well.
That Imee addressed the family conflict on the campaign stage, declaring the Marcos name repeatedly, shows that she does not want it to get in the way of her cornering the Marcos votes.
In her 2019 senatorial run where she landed 8th of 12 winning bets, Imee was number 1 in both the Ilocos Region and the Cordillera. She would need a repeat of that — now more than ever.
All is well in the ruling family? We’ll see in May. – Rappler.com