What's your prediction for the Presidential Election on the 9th?

I have to admit, if I lived in the Philippines, I would be more than a little concerned that such a person might become president. I read that he had vowed to execute 100,000 criminals and dump them in manila bay.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/08/asia/philippines-election/

Still. If he gets in, then it will be easier to send money to the Phils when the peso crashes. 100 pesos per pound anyone?

I speak as I find.

Unlike many of his denigrators, I have spent five years living in the city run by the Mayors Duterte and, in common with other Dabawenyos, always felt completely safe and enjoyed its almost crime-freeness; feelings I did not have previously living in Cebu or during my brief visits to Manila and San Carlos during the preceding four years.

It is very evident that many voters throughout the country want to experience what Dabawenyos have over the last decade or so. Many Filipinos believed Aquino's pre-election promises to end corruption and cronyism but they were well and truly let down over the non-prosecution of those law makers involved in the "Pork Barrel" scandal.

Roxas and Binay simply promised 'more of the same' and whilst the other three living candidates gave strong anti-corruption pledges, only Duterte has the track record to back-up his promise.

As of a few minutes ago, 84.16% of the districts have reported. In the Presidential race, Duterte holds a commanding lead of more than 5.7 million over the second placed Roxas who has narrowly overtaken Poe. Binay is nowhere.

The Vice Presidential race is far more exciting with Marcos leading Robredo by just over 116 thousand votes. She has managed to narrow the gap by over 80,000 votes over the last half-hour so she could still pull level and overtake him. One hopes.

The Rappler publishes a very interesting results map showing how the candidates fared regionally. As one might expect, Duterte did exceptionally well in Mindanao, with only Misamis Occidental and Agusan Del Sur returning Roxas. Duterte took the entire National Capital Region - apart from Makati which predictably voted for Binay - Ilocos Norte, Olongapo, Batangas, Angeles, Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal, Laguna, Cavite, Cebu, Bohol and Leyte. Roxas did well in the western Visayas and Samar but only managed to attract voters in Camarines, Ifugao and Tarlac on Luzon. Third placed Poe was the favourite in central and southern Luzon and Oriental Mindoro but failed in the Visayas and Mindanao. Other than Makati, Binay managed just seven districts in north-eastern Luzon; he also managed to take Isabella but the rest of Basilan went to Duterte, as did Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

If he doesnt get "salvaged" Dom

Looks like Duterte has won.
Interesting times ahead for the Philippines.

Yes he has. But Marcos may not have won the Vice-President's post. That looks very very close.

I will predict that Duterte will not serve a six year term.

I do feel though that some of duterte proposals such as banning late night karaoke and a curfew on children on the streets at night seem quite a good idea. I'm also intrigued by his claims that he would give more voice and resources to the provinces and his appointment will certainly shake up the clique of people who have been rather unsuccessfully running the nation to date. It's going to be interesting.

You can see the list of people in his inner circle - published in the Inquirer, Rappler, etc. General Esperon is not a very new name and neither are most of the others. Same clique, different faces - specifically GMA-era faces.

The Peso has strengthened over night, and their stock exchange has gained 2% today. This suggests that the markets don't see Duterte as that much of a wild card.

Fair point, but their Stock Exchange was up 2.62% at close today. This followed a series of falls around the time that Duterte visited the business community. With the apparent election of Duterte, it seems the stock market has responded positively to, what appears to be, a conclusive election result. If I was a betting man, I'd have plumped for a 1% fall following the election result, so a 2.62% rise is a bit of a surprise. Markets don't like uncertainty, and maybe they can't see much changing in the short term.

The peso has risen against all of its peers today too.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...uterte-claims-philippine-presidential-victory

I hate to intrude on private grief but I hope that prediction is based on more solid information from a different source to the one you quoted at the end of last June:

Oops!

You also relayed this informational nugget:

"Especially in Mindanao"?!!

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That's Mindanao shaded according to how its various districts voted in the election for President as published by the Rappler. It is coloured according to which of the candidates gained the most votes - yellow for Roxas and blue for Duterte. There is no orange - for Binay - at all. And as for his "massive support", he's languishing in fourth place with just under 13% of the popular vote.

A big upset for those wedded to old-style conventional politics, for sure. However I rather think that in the cases of Britain, America and the Philippines we're seeing examples of where the electorate is fed-up with the old style of politics, of being lied to and let down by all politicians on all sides and are voting for change. Hence Jeremy Corbyn's sizeable popular mandate, a leader who, having survived this year's elections coupled with the cowardice of his Parliamentary opponents, now stands an improved chance of becoming the next Prime Minister. Hence Trump getting the Republican nomination and with it a better than evens chance of becoming the next US President. And a rejection of the old style patronage politics with its wide-scale corruption and cronyism by the Philippine electorate.

Will Duterte deliver on his pledges? Or Trump on his? Hard to say but one can only hope that Corbyn isn't given the chance!

Mark, you will find the statements that I made last June to have been perfectly accurate.

Binay did have huge support in Mindanao, and Duterte was hawking himself around looking for backers and saying that unless the money men came forward he would not run.

Duterte found GMA and the Chinese, funneled by his big buddy Go, and decided to run. if you look at his campaign managers they are mostly GMA people. In doing do he knocked out Binay in Mindanao.

I find the idea of a man who sits at the top of the Davao rice smuggling cartel and who lets Chinese shabu distributors captured in a bloody shootout go without charging them "because it was Chinese new year" as a representative of the "rejection of the old style patronage politics with its wide-scale corruption and cronyism" rather funny.

But it only gets better...

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/stor...esidency-a-fulfillment-of-quiboloy-s-prophecy

Now lets shift our attention to the Vice-Presidential contest, where it is even possible that Mark and I would like to see the same candidate victorious. It's very, very close.

It is quite possible that Duterte would rather have Robredo, despite her solid track record as a human rights lawyer and community organiser, than Bongbong Marcos as his Vice President. It cannot be easy to sleep at night with the thought that your life is the only thing that stands between BongBong and Daddy's Old Job, Which Would Make Mummy So Very Happy...

I don't know about Duterte but I'd certainly prefer Robredo as Vice President over any member of the Marcos clan. Being somewhat of a pragmatist, Duterte would, I'm sure, concur.

I think we can safely call it for Robredo. With over 93% of the precincts reporting, she has a 200 thousand lead over Marcos. Late last night, Marcos held the lead over Robredo by about the same margin and every hourly update since has benefitted Robredo's tally and worsened Marcos'.

We must hope so. She has been saying all the right things, despite a spoof website's joke that she would resign rather than serve under Duterte getting taken seriously and being zealously circulated by some people. She is going to have a very, very difficult job.

I hope you will soon put your "Ang katapusan ng mundo ay malapit - Magsisi!" sandwhich-board away for another five years or so - though I'm confident you'll keep its English language stable mate around for a while yet!

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Neither you nor I elected anyone in this contest so we can but watch, cringingly or not, as events unfold