Manila - The race for the 2010 Philippine presidential elections kicked off Tuesday with analysts predicting vicious mudslinging among the candidates and their supporters. Political analyst Ramon Casiple said he foresees a ferocious slugfest among the top contenders in the presidential polls, especially between frontrunners Senator Benigno Aquino III and Senator Manuel Villar.
"The start of the presidential campaign will become a tit-for-tat, drag-down bitchy campaign," he said.
"Perception or not, the two contenders and their supporters cannot afford to lose an opportunity, exploit an opening or
vulnerability of the opponent or to fail to defend from the other side's thrust, counter-thrust or offensive," Casiple said.
Indeed, the sniping started early in the camps of 50-year-old bachelor Aquino and real-estate magnate Villar, 60.
Attacks against Villar peaked a week ago in a
Senate plenary discussion on his alleged unethical conduct in influencing a major road project to ensure that it would pass through his lands.
Villar's supporters would not be left behind and kept up attacks on Aquino for a road project that led to his family's sugar plantation.
Aquino allies cast doubt on Villar presenting himself as an opposition candidate, accusing him of being the candidate closest to the discredited administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Villar on the other hand tried to cast doubt on Aquino's competence by citing his alleged lacklustre performance as senator and rising on the back of the his famous mother, late democracy icon Corazon Aquino.
Aquino vowed he would not steal from the government's coffers, while Villar promised to lift up the country's impoverished millions.
Aquino topped latest nationwide surveys, with Villar following closely behind in a statistical dead heat.
Political
science professor Benito Lim said he expects personal attacks among candidates to heighten as the May 10 elections come closer, due to the competitors' failure to present viable government programmes.
"We will see an
election that will be celebrated and the opponents will be throwing mud at each other," he said. "Unfortunately, none of them have presented a well thought-out programme to address the national problems of the Philippines."
Hoping to catch up with the two top contenders is former president Joseph Estrada, who was ousted by a military-backed mass uprising in 2001 and convicted of massive corruption in 2007.
The 73-year-old Estrada, a distant third in various surveys, vowed to complete his unfulfilled promises if the country's more than 50 million voters would give him a second chance.
Estrada maintained he did not steal from the government despite being convicted of large-scale graft and was merely a victim of a conspiracy among the elite political families and the powerful
Catholic church.
"When I started to campaign for president in 1998, I was also not a top contender but as election neared my numbers improved," he said.
Administration candidate Gilberto Teodoro, lagging even further behind, also hopes to improve his rating as the campaign shifts to high gear.
But what it comes down to is that is Arroyo proves to be too heavy a burden for the 43-year-old top lawyer, who has failed to improve his standing since declaring his candidacy in November.
Lim said voters must be able to see through the theatrics of candidates and choose one who can help clean up the mess left behind by Arroyo's nine-year rule.
Among the urgent problems the new leader needs to address are high unemployment, poverty threatening one-third of the country's 90 million people, communist and Muslim insurgencies and widespread corruption in the bureaucracy.
"With the country now described as Asia's laggard, Filipinos are pinning their hopes for a better life on the results of the general elections," the Philippine Star newspaper said. "But those hopes can be achieved only if informed choices are made."
