Imee snubs Alyansa as President Marcos takes campaign to Leyte

MANILA, Philippines — Senator Imee Marcos, the eldest sister of Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas chief campaigner President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is skipping the coalition’s stop in her maternal clan’s bailiwick, Leyte, in protest against the administration’s decision to arrest, then turn over, former president Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“Nagpapaumanhin ako sa mga kababayan kong Waray na hindi ako makakadalo sa rally mamaya sa Tacloban. HINDI KO MATANGGAP ANG GINAWA KAY FPRRD,” she said in a post on her Facebook page, hours before the sortie in Tacloban City was set to take place on Friday, March 14.

(I apologize to my fellow Waray because I cannot join the rally later in Tacloban. I cannot accept what they did to former president Rodrigo Duterte.)

Marcos, who recently recorded a drop in the latest Pulse Asia preference survey, added: “Pinag-aaralan ko ang mga pangyayari upang maliwanagan ang sambayanan, makabuo ng makatotohanang solusyon patungkol sa pagtangay sa dating pangulo.”

(I am still studying recent events to help enlighten the country, and to form a real solution to the seizure of our former president.)

Senator Marcos had earlier criticized the arrest of Duterte over an ICC-issued warrant for crimes against humanity in relation to his drug war. The senator, who is allied herself with the Dutertes, said “political fighting” does not benefit the electorate. She also referenced the events of 1986, when her father, the dictator and namesake of the President, was ousted from power through the bloodless EDSA People Power Revolution. Their family then was forced to flee to Hawaii.

Her March 14 statement is among her strongest statements yet against her brother and his administration since the 2025 campaign period for national candidates began.

Senator Marcos is one of 12 persons that President Marcos has endorsed for the 2025 senatorial elections. She turned down her inclusion in the slate as she would rather be an “independent” candidate, only for her to join its sorties across the country.

Leyte bailiwick

That Senator Marcos is skipping the Leyte sortie, the 9th overall for the slate, is noteworthy also because Tacloban is considered a bailiwick of the Marcoses, as it is the hometown of former first lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos.

The Romualdez clan, including the President’s cousin House Speaker Martin Romualdez, dominate politics in Tacloban and parts of Leyte. The city’s current mayor, Alfred Romualdez, is a cousin of both the Speaker and the Marcos siblings.

Marcos easily won in Leyte in 2022, securing over 641,065 over his closest rival, former vice president Leni Robredo. The province is home to over 1.4 million registered voters in 2025.

The Leyte stop is the first Alyansa sortie since the administration arrested, then flew former president Duterte to The Hague to face charges related to his bloody drug war. The trauma of the drug war — which claimed over 30,000 lives, according to human rights groups — is among the issues Marcos himself had highlighted as chief campaigner of Alyansa.

The President has sought to contrast his Senate bets with their rivals — particularly the candidates that Duterte is endorsing. In his campaign speech, Marcos often calls out candidates whose hands are bloodied by the drug war, are pro-China, or were corrupt during the pandemic.

Alyansa still up, but…

Of the 12 candidates of Alyansa, 8 are in the “winners’ circle” of the Pulse Asia February 2025 survey, meaning they have statistical chances of winning, at least during the period that the survey was held.

Senator Marcos is not part of that circle, after she dropped 13 percentage points from the last iteration of the Pulse Asia survey. Ten Alyansa candidates were considered to have a “statistical chance” of winning in the January 2025 version of the survey.

Only two candidates from the Duterte-endorsed slate are in the “winners’ circle” according to surveys — reelectionists Bong Go and Ronald dela Rosa. The latter, one-time police chief of Duterte who implemented his drug war, saw a bump in his preference numbers from January to February 2025.

Campaign operators have told Rappler that Rodrigo Duterte, despite staying mostly out of the public eye since stepping down in 2022, has managed to retain his endorsement powers.

It will be important for President Marcos and his coalition to win as many Senate seats as they can. After the campaign, the Senate is expected to begin acting on the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, eldest daughter of the former president and one-time ally of President Marcos. – Rappler.com