Dumping pro-China candidates

It’s been decades since a major foreign policy issue has defined a candidate’s winning chances. But, with a recent survey saying that an overwhelming majority of Filipinos are set to dump pro-China candidates in the 2025 midterm elections, it will soon be the case.

While such a significant political intention indicates public support for the Marcos administration’s handling of our deteriorating relations with China, the same intention also specifically tells us about the crucial fact that most Filipinos commonly hold the opinion that China is up to no good and that countering her aggressiveness is proper.

Which in turn tells us that Chinese disinformation campaigns, aimed at sowing discord and altering Filipino perceptions of China, have essentially failed. A development which should warm the hearts of vilified administration security officials like the Coast Guard’s Jay Tarriela.

Before anything else, however, major survey firm Pulse Asia last Monday said seven out of 10 Filipinos definitely “will not support” a candidate who is “pro-China at present or in the past.”

Conducted from 6 to 13 September, the survey showed that 73 percent of Filipinos said they wouldn’t back a pro-China candidate, while only five percent said they would support a pro-China candidate. A further 23 percent said they “cannot say” where they stood on the issue.

By geographic area, the Pulse Asia survey found that the highest proportion of respondents who would dump pro-China candidates were in the Visayas (85 percent), followed by Metro Manila (83 percent), Mindanao (74 percent) and Luzon outside of Manila (65 percent).

Interestingly enough, it is the poorer classes who strongly reject pro-China candidates, with 74 percent of those belonging to Class E saying they would not support pro-China candidates, followed by 73 percent from Class D, and 72 percent from Class ABC.

Interpreting the survey results, Dindo Manhit of the private think tank Stratbase Group said the majority of Filipinos believe that a candidate’s position for or against China was “not just a political choice but a decision that can jeopardize our future and our nation’s standing in the global arena.”

In other words, this means most Filipinos view the China issue as less about personal political loyalties and more about the fact that “electing pro-China candidates poses significant risks, as it will lead to policies that will compromise our territorial integrity and economic interests.”

Such a notable shift in Filipino political opinion now points out the interesting political fact that when it concerns China and Chinese aggression many Filipinos completely junk their fanatical support for pro-China populist politicians like former President Rodrigo Duterte.

Which in turn allows us to predict who between the feuding Marcos and Duterte dynasties might likely have the upper hand in electing senators.

So far, only a few senatorial candidates have publicly made known their personal positions on China.

But many presume that those running under the coalition backed by Marcos favor his combative efforts against China; while those running under the pro-China Duterte flag will likely continue with keeping their pronounced silence on China and Chinese aggressiveness in the West Philippine Sea.

How soon these senatorial candidates will dramatically proclaim their stand or switch from their previous positions on China is anybody’s guess. But subsequent senatorial preference surveys should play a large role in whatever their proclamations will be.

Nonetheless, the present mood of the Filipino electorate regarding pro-China candidates reinforces the point that many Filipinos are now basically numb to Chinese propaganda.

This, despite crabby enabling efforts by a vocal minority of online Filipino influencers who for the most part when it comes to their politics profess pro-Duterte sympathies.

Consequently, most Filipinos somehow consciously ignore obvious pro-China propaganda like that picturing the Philippines as a “mischief maker” and as not honoring “commitments” and going against regional “consensus.”

Most Filipinos too somehow show healthy skepticism about Chinese-inspired narratives of a “major powers competition,” with surveys frequently showing Filipinos generally welcome military and economic aid from China’s rivals like the US and Japan.