QUEZON, Philippines — The administration’s Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas will stage campaign rallies in Quezon and Batangas with just over a week to go in the campaign period.
The slate, including its chief campaigner President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., will be campaigning in Lucena City on Friday, May 2, and Batangas City on Saturday, May 3.
The two cities are in provinces that are among the most-vote rich in the country — Quezon has over 1.5 million registered voters in the 2025 elections, while Batangas is home to nearly 2 million voters.
In late March and early April, Marcos and his slate had campaigned in Cavite, Laguna, and Rizal — southern Luzon provinces that are also vote-rich.
Luzon island, sans Metro Manila, is where Marcos has relatively better approval and trust ratings even as he saw his numbers plummet in the aftermath of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, and months after a Marcos-allied House impeached his former ally, Vice President Sara Duterte.
That late-March Pulse Asia survey found that a majority of Filipinos across most of the country — save for Luzon, and minus the National Capital Region — neither trusted nor approved of Marcos.
The drop in Marcos’ numbers coincided with the drop in the voters’ preference numbers of most of his Alyansa bets since the campaign started in February 2025. Still, the slate is poised to win at least nine out of the 12 Senate seats up for grabs on May 12, based on pre-election surveys held in March by firms like Pulse Asia Research, Incorporated and Social Weather Stations, the latter commissioned by the Stratbase Group.
The national, the local
In releases ahead of their campaign rallies, Alyansa campaign manager Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco emphasized the two provinces’ political clout.
“Quezon has always been a stronghold of civic energy and political influence,” said Tiangco.
Of their Saturday stop, Tiangco said, “Batangas has always been a province that sets the tone for elections. Its people are discerning, dynamic and decisive.”
Incumbents in both Quezon and Batangas are allied with the administration. The local party that Quezon Governor Angelina Tan launched in 2024 is allied with the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), her political party and part of the Alyansa coalition. The party’s chair, Senate return hopeful Vicente Sotto III, an Alyansa candidate.
In early April 2025, Marcos was in Quezon province alongside Governor Tan for the Filipino Food month nationwide kickoff.
In Batangas, the dynamics between the executive and local politics are not as straightforward. Former governor and local showbusiness pillar Vilma Santos, wife of Marcos’ finance chief Ralph Recto, is seeking a return to the provincial capitol. She is running for governor in tandem with her son, actor Luis Manzano. Recto’s influence in the province cannot be downplayed.
Manzano is running against but term-limited Governor Dodo Mandanas, with whom Marcos has personal ties with — the President and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, in fact, were wedding guests when the then 80-year-old governor wed 32-year-old lawyer Angelica Chua. Mandanas was also once rumored to be eyed for the executive secretary post, although the governor himself denied any pending appointments. He has endorsed the candidate of Santos’ rival, Michael Angelo Rivera.
The Alyansa promise
As the administration slate, Alyansa candidates have, unsurprisingly, made sweeping promises to support Marcos’ agenda.
Tiangco said Alyansa’s vision complements the Bagong Pilipinas agenda of the Marcos administration, aimed at sustaining growth, stability, and good governance.
“Our candidates offer more than promises. They offer experience, action and a shared vision of a better future for Batangas and the entire country,” said Tiangco in their press release for the Batangas stop.
Sorties for the administration run like clockwork — a press conference takes place just after lunch and by 3 pm or sometimes 5 pm, senatorial candidates go on stage to deliver their campaign pitches, between interpretative dances and at least two nationalistic songs. Rapper Andrew E. then takes the stage before Marcos delivers the final speech of the night — hyping his slate’s experience and mettle as he cautions voters against reverting to a past he has characterized as pro-China and bloody, referring of course to the administration of his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
But it’s the behind-the-scenes work that will truly put the administration, and its vaunted machinery, to the test.
All 11 of the Alyansa’s candidates are expected to attend the Lucena and Batangas sorties, although at least one of its members has been a frequent absentee — Deputy House Speaker Camille Villar, whose clan dominates the Alyansa-allied Nacionalista Party. Earlier in the week, Marcos himself ordered a probe into the Villar-owned PrimeWater, as complaints over their poor service mount nationwide.
Despite seeking the endorsement of Vice President Duterte and skipping a handful of sorties, Villar appears to be still part of the slate — a stark contrast to presidential sister and reelectionist Senator Imee Marcos, who was officially removed from the Alyansa roster in late March, after she skipped sorties and said she could no longer campaign with her brother’s slate in protest of Duterte’s arrest.
With less than a week to go, it’s crunch time for all national candidates — but moreso an administration coalition with practically all resources at its disposal. – Rappler.com