Amid the Midterms, Realignments, and Cognitive Dissonance

Bongbong Marcos at a campaign appearance with his senatorial slate, Manila, May 2025 | Photo: Bongbong Marcos on Facebook

In an article by New Mandala, Anthony Lawrence Borja demonstrates that the outcome of the 2025 midterm elections in the Philippines confirmed two trends in the Duterte–Marcos period: the emergence of politics as a three-way fight between the Marcos administration, a resilient Duterte camp, and the traditional liberal opposition.

Defying expectations and previous patterns, in the midterm elections held on 12 May the Filipino electorate generated neither dominance to any single political bloc nor a clear two-way split between administration and opposition candidates.

Rather, in the context of an increasingly unpopular president opposed by a popular and vitriolic vice-president, the recently concluded 2025 senatorial elections yielded a surprising result, making the road to the 2028 presidential elections less and less predictable. As it stands, Filipino national politics is now a three-way fight between the incumbent Marcos administration, a resilient Duterte camp, and the traditional liberal opposition.

The volatility of such an arrangement is emphasised, not only by the future of the Marcos administration’s legislative agenda but also by the looming impeachment trial of vice president Sara Duterte—a great shadow hanging over the next general elections.

If sovereignty is about constituting the state, then it appears that the sovereign Filipino people just created a complicated battlefield that those just elected must struggle to navigate through if they want their careers to survive by 2028 and beyond.