Millions of Filipinos participated in the midterm elections on Monday, an electoral exercise featuring detained former president Rodrigo Duterte among the contenders vying for approximately 18,000 national and local positions, with local media outlets documenting President Marcos Jr. completing and submitting his ballot in Batac City, Ilocos Norte.

In this photograph furnished by the Presidential Communications Office, the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., centrally positioned, displays the indelible ink upon his digit following the submission of his ballot at an electoral precinct in Batac City, Ilocos Norte province, Philippines, on Monday, May 12, 2025.

An enfranchised individual exercises their electoral prerogative by casting their vote at a designated polling precinct in Quezon City, Philippines, on the twelfth of May, two thousand twenty-five, as captured by Associated Press lensman Basilio Sepe.

In Quezon City, Philippines, on Monday, May 12, 2025, the populace exercised their democratic prerogative at a designated polling emplacement. (AP Photo/Basilio Sepe)

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte is captured in a moment of expressive gesticulation whilst addressing the media during a post-voting press conference, having just cast her ballot at a polling station in Davao City, southern Philippines, on Monday, May 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Manman Dejeto)

The accompanying photograph, supplied by Team Pacquiao, depicts Manny Pacquiao, the esteemed Filipino pugilist and erstwhile senator, displaying the enduring ink on his digit following the exercise of his franchise at Kiamba Central Elementary School, situated in Kiamba, Sarangani province, southern Philippines, on Monday, May 12, 2025. (Wendell Alinea/Team Pacquiao via AP)

Penned by Teresa Cerojano.

Notwithstanding his detainment in The Hague, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was included in the roster of candidates contending for approximately 18,000 national and local positions in Monday's midterm elections, which political analysts posit will be determinative of the perpetuation of his and his family's political hegemony.

Since March, Duterte has been in the International Criminal Court's custody, facing trial for crimes against humanity stemming from a savage anti-narcotics campaign that claimed the lives of thousands of alleged offenders during his 2016-2022 tenure as president; a predicament that has evidently not precluded his mayoral bid in his southern stronghold of Davao city.

Under Philippine jurisprudence, individuals subject to criminal prosecution, even whilst under custodial restraint, retain eligibility for public office unless a final, unappealable conviction has been rendered against them.

Duterte is pervasively anticipated to secure the mayoral post in Davao, an office he occupied for upwards of twenty years antecedent to his presidential tenure; it remains less perspicuous how he could pragmatically discharge the duties of mayor whilst incarcerated.

A populace exceeding sixty-eight million Filipinos was duly inscribed in the electoral rolls on Monday to cast their suffrages for a moiety of the twenty-four-member Senate, the entirety of the three hundred seventeen constituencies within the House of Representatives, and a plethora of posts spanning provincial, municipal, and civic jurisdictions.

The polls were officially declared closed at 7 p.m. local time, yet the franchise remained open to those voters still queued at certain locations; election officials intimated that an informal prognosis might be forthcoming within hours, whereas the definitive tally was anticipated within a week.

The focal point is the Senatorial contest, potentially dictating the political trajectory of Duterte’s progeny, Vice President Sara Duterte, who is slated for an impeachment hearing in the Senate this July concerning allegations of orchestrating President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s assassination and malfeasance related to her office's intelligence appropriations, accusations she vehemently refutes, attributing them to her political adversaries' machinations aimed at her undoing.

While Sara Duterte is widely perceived as a formidable aspirant in the forthcoming 2028 presidential contest, a Senate conviction would inexorably result in her ouster from the vice presidency and an absolute proscription from holding public office; securing an acquittal necessitates the affirmative vote of a supermajority, specifically at least nine of the twenty-four senators.

Maria Ela Atienza, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, posited that the forthcoming 2025 midterm elections are poised to be pivotal, serving as a harbinger of the trajectory for subsequent political developments, specifically prefiguring which dynastic or factional power will exert dominance in the 2028 electoral landscape.

A conviction in the impeachment proceedings against Sara Duterte, she opined, could portend the cessation of the Duterte family's dominance in pivotal national roles, noting that other family members vying for electoral success include Rodrigo Duterte’s youngest scion, Sebastian, the present Mayor of Davao, who is now contesting the vice-mayoral position and is widely anticipated to prevail, his eldest issue, Paolo, seeking re-election to the House of Representatives, and two grandchildren likewise competing in local contests.

The impeachment of Rodrigo Duterte, culminating in his arrest and rendition to the tribunal at The Hague, ensued after the erstwhile alignment between Marcos and Sara Duterte fractured irretrievably, precipitated by profound political schisms and their mutually antagonistic ambitions.

Preceding this, on Monday morning, Sara Duterte had discharged her civic duty by voting in Davao, concurrently with Marcos's similar act of suffrage in his northern ancestral seat, Batac City.

Subsequent to the act of suffrage, she conveyed to members of the press corps her unequivocal commitment to honouring the electoral outcome, irrespective of whether the candidates she endorsed emerged victorious.

In contemplation of her father's anticipated victory, she remarked, "Assuredly, he will not be present; our expectation is that the vice mayor, Sebastian, will assume the role of acting mayor."

On the very precipice of the electoral contest, Marcos, through a video communiqué, had fervently exhorted the Filipino populace to exercise their franchise and ensure their collective voice achieved full resonance.

Her father's spiritual confidant and political adjunct, the televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, is furthermore contesting a senatorial position notwithstanding his detention on indictments of sexual abuse and human trafficking, concurrent with his extradition warrant in the United States for kindred allegations.

The electoral process has been vitiated by sporadic outbreaks of violence. In Silay City, situated in the central Philippines, law enforcement officials documented a shooting incident that resulted in the fatalities of two individuals and injuries to a further seven. Concurrently, in the southern municipality of New Corella, partisans affiliated with two contenders for the mayoral office engaged in a reciprocal exchange of gunfire, culminating in two deaths and two injuries. Further south, in Basilan, suspected election-linked shootings claimed the lives of seven individuals. Additionally, a number of other persons sustained injuries in similar incidents across diverse regions of the nation.

Escalating altercations between adherents of competing candidates likewise impeded suffrage in numerous constituencies; in Manila, sundry electors voiced discontentment regarding the inexplicable omission of their appellations from the precinct registers, whilst others remonstrated against the protracted queues exacerbated by the oppressive heat.

Voter Reymark Marquez posited that the Marcos-Duterte alliance, triumphant in the 2022 elections, had demonstrably failed to fulfil their campaign pledges, further opining that the forthcoming midterm elections transcended the mere binary of Duterte versus Marcos, instead representing a critical juncture for the electorate to discern and select genuinely competent leadership.

"In my estimation," remarked Diana Joy Acosta, a thirty-two-year-old neophyte mother, having just discharged her civic duty at a polling station within metropolitan Manila's Mandaluyong City, "what hinges upon the outcome of this electoral contest is nothing less than the destiny of the succeeding generation." Driven by the aspiration of a propitious future for her progeny, she fervently desires a cessation of venality and the ascendance of statesmen possessing unimpeachable rectitude.