MANILA, Philippines—Those aspiring to run for president in May 2022 are holding off on announcing their plans for fear of the Duterte administration’s army of trolls, retired Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said on Thursday (July 15).
Carpio, who is also one of the lead convenors of the group 1Sambayan, predicted that those who would run for president, who are not candidates of the administration, would announce their plans shortly before the start of filing of candidacies in the first week of October.
“These candidates are afraid that if they come out now, the trolls of Duterte will pounce on them so they will probably make their decision sometime in late September just before the filing of certificate of candidacy in the first week of October,” he said at an online press conference.
“Thousands of trolls all over the internet will attack you and there is no way you can fight back because these are anonymous people, fake people,” Carpio said.
1Sambayan, a coalition seeking to field a single candidate for president against whoever Duterte will endorse, has yet to name a presidential candidate to support though it came out with a list of nominees last June.
Carpio said 1Sambayan was not at all discouraged by recent polling that showed Sara, President Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter, was the potential presidential candidate most preferred by Filipinos. Duterte, according to the same polling results, was also top preferred potential candidate for vice president.
“If you look at the surveys in the past presidential elections since the time of President Ramos, all those leading in the surveys at this time lost,” Carpio said, adding that the more accurate polling results would be from surveys conducted weeks before the elections.
“The real surveys that will be reflective of the elections will be sometime in March because everything’s fluid,” he said.