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MANILA, Philippines – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is set to kick off the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas’ Mindanao campaign for Senate seats on Saturday, February 15, deep in enemy territory: the Davao Region, stronghold of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte.
The administration’s ticket will make a stop in Tagum City, the capital of Davao del Norte, a province politically dominated by ex-House speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, one of Duterte’s longtime allies. Alvarez is the representative of the province’s 1st District.
The group’s first rally in Mindanao is scheduled at 4 pm in Carmen, Davao del Norte — a town outside of Alvarez’s congressional district. Carmen falls under the 2nd District, territory of former congressman Antonio Lagdameo Jr., now serving as Special Assistant to the President.
Located about 38 kilometers from Duterte’s city, 17 kilometers from Tagum City, and just six kilometers from Panabo City, Carmen is a strategic venue for the Alyansa rally.
Davao del Norte supported Marcos Jr. in the 2022 elections, with backing from the former president’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte. With Sara as his running mate, Marcos won 81% of the province’s voters — 470,000 out of 577,781 — during the presidential race.
Calculated move
The Marcos-backed ticket’s campaign is widely seen as a calculated move into Duterte’s region, testing whether the ex-president’s grip on Mindanao’s politics, particularly in the Davao Region, is beginning to loosen.
Mindanao’s electorate makes up nearly 24% of the national total of 68.6 million voters, with the Davao Region alone accounting for close to 5%.
Davao City, where Duterte built his political empire, holds sway over just over a fifth of the Davao Region’s more than three million voters, an electorate that has remained fiercely loyal to the aging ex-president and his family.
This loyalty is reflected in the latest Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey of December 2024, as reported in GMANews, which said that while satisfaction ratings for both Marcos and Sara Duterte fell, the President’s biggest drop was recorded in Mindanao (34 points) from +16% to -18%.
Whether or not that huge drop will rub off on the Alyansa senatorial slate remains to be seen.
In terms of satisfaction with the national government’s performance, SWS said that the lowest rating for the Marcos administration was recorded also in Mindanao (16%, described as moderate). Nationwide, dissatisfaction was most evident in government efforts to fight inflation. Trust of the President is also lowest in Mindanao at only net of 1%.
Vote-rich
The Marcos administration seeks to tighten its hold on Mindanao’s voting base as the power struggle between the two camps intensifies.
Now with 721,737 voters, Davao del Norte is the most vote-rich province in Southern Mindanao, second only to Davao City in electoral clout.
In the Davao Region, the registered voter breakdown paints a clear picture of the political landscape. Davao City leads with a little more than a million voters, making up 29.76% of the region’s total, while Davao del Norte accounts for 21.3% with its 721,737 voters.
Davao de Oro ranks third with 551,671 voters, comprising 16.29%, while Davao del Sur has 464,812 voters, representing 13.72%. Davao Oriental holds 435,188 voters or 12.85%, while Davao Occidental trails with 205,737 voters, making up just 6.07% of the total.
The Davao Region, with its 3.38-million voting population, holds the largest share of Mindanao’s electorate, accounting for nearly 21% of the voters in the country’s second-largest island. It is followed closely by Northern Mindanao, which has 3.19 million voters, or 19.46%. The Zamboanga Peninsula comes in third with 2.88 million voters, accounting for 17.54% of the total.
Further down the list, Soccsksargen’s 2.7 million voters make up 16.48% of Mindanao’s electorate, while the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), including its Special Geographic Area (SGA), accounts for 2.36 million voters, or 14.41%.
The Caraga Region, with 1.88 million voters, is the smallest voting bloc in Mindanao at 11.5%.
The numbers show the political importance of the Davao Region, which remains the largest electoral battleground in Mindanao — a factor that holds considerable weight as the President and his allies push their campaign into territory long dominated by the Duterte political dynasty.
Marcos bailiwick
The Davao Region, however, falls behind the Marcoses’ stronghold, the Ilocos Region, which boasts about 3.65 million registered voters — 264,610 more than the Dutertes’ turf.
It was in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte — the very province where Marcos Jr. once held the governorship — where the Malacañang-backed senatorial ticket formally launched its 90-day nationwide campaign for Senate seats on Tuesday, February 11.
Two days later, the administration’s ticket turned its attention to Iloilo, a key Western Visayas battleground.
There were about 1.6 million voters in Iloilo province and its capital city, where Marcos and Duterte’s daughter, his running mate, lost in the 2022 elections. Most Ilonggos voted for Marcos’ rival, former vice president Leni Robredo, and her running mate, ex-senator Francis Pangilinan.
Optimistic
The senatorial ticket’s campaign manager, Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco, said the administration candidates are committed to the Marcos administration’s thrust toward economic growth, infrastructure expansion, and social welfare programs.
“Just as they stood behind (Marcos Jr.), we believe our Mindanaoan brothers and sisters will back our Senate slate, which shares his vision for progress,” read part of Tiangco’s statement on the eve of the Davao del Norte campaign rally.
Without elaborating, Tiangco described the Marcos-supported candidates as “proven leaders” with track records of public service.
Of the 12 administration bets for Senate seats, only one is from Mindanao: former senator and Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao.
Five are seeking reelection: senators Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Ramon Revilla Jr., Francis Tolentino, and Imee Marcos, the President’s elder sister.
Aside from Pacquiao, two other candidates on the administration slate are former senators: Panfilo Lacson and Vicente Sotto III.
The other administration candidates are former Interior secretary Benhur Abalos, Makati Mayor Abigail Binay, ACT-CIS Representative Erwin Tulfo, and Deputy Speaker Camille Villar. – Rappler.com
