Robredo to battle Marcos for Philippine presidency, as supporters liken her to Corazon Aquino

Just 24 hours after the son of dictator Ferdinand Marcos entered the presidential race, his arch-rival Leni Robredo announces she is ready ‘to battle’

While supporters liken her to former president Corazon Aquino, Robredo faces a tough fight as she is trailing Marcos Jnr and Sara Duterte in the polls

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Philippine Vice-President Leni Robredo files her certificate of candidacy for president in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines. Photo: EPA

Published: 9:41pm, 7 Oct 2021Updated: 9:08am, 8 Oct 2021

“I will fight. We will fight.” With these words, Leni Robredo formally announced she would run for president in next year’s Philippine election.

“I am a mother, not only of three children but of the entire country [and I see] my beloved country suffering,” said Robredo, currently the vice-president, in a speech on Thursday morning, soon before filing her candidacy papers. “I firmly believe that love is not measured by forbearance alone but by a readiness to do battle. Whoever loves must do battle for the beloved.”

The entrance into the race of Robredo sets up a clash with her arch-rival Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr – the son of the dictator who ruled the country under martial law in the 1970s – who filed his own candidacy papers just 24 hours earlier. In the last election, Robredo beat Marcos Jnr to the vice-presidency.

Many victims of Marcos Snr’s brutal reign, during which suspected communists were tortured or disappeared, have reacted angrily to his son’s bid for the top job, protesting and describing it as a “slap in the face”. Consequently, Robredo’s supporters have likened her to former president Corazon Aquino, who restored democracy after Marcos Snr’s downfall.

Robredo’s candidacy also sets up the prospect of an intriguing clash with the Duterte family. Robredo has been a thorn in the side of President Rodrigo Duterte throughout his six-year term, and while the president is not standing for election (the constitution limits Philippine presidents to a single term), speculation is growing that his daughter Sara will throw her hat into the ring over the next few weeks. Candidates can file until October 8 but substitutions are allowed until November 15.

Robredo has a challenging fight ahead. In last month’s opinion poll by private pollster Pulse Asia, she placed a distant sixth in respondents’ presidential preferences after Sara Duterte, Marcos Jnr, Manila City Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso, boxer-turned-senator Manny Pacquiao, and Senator Grace Poe. University of the Philippines political science professor Jean Franco, however, said that Robredo had not been a frontrunner in 2016 either. In Pulse Asia’s September 2015 survey Marcos Jnr had ranked third while Robredo had not ranked at all.