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    Robredo Admits Defeat in Philippine Presidential Election

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    Leni Robredo urged her supporters, many of them young voters, to accept her defeat but didn’t refer to Ferdinand Marcos Jr. by name.QUEZON CITY, Philippines — Leni Robredo, the outgoing vice president of the Philippines, acknowledged on Friday her loss in one of the most consequential presidential elections in the country’s history, urging her supporters to accept the results of the vote and to keep fighting disinformation.Speaking at a rally at the Ateneo de Manila University, where thousands of her supporters had gathered, Ms. Robredo did not mention the apparent winner, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the country’s late dictator.Protests against Mr. Marcos erupted after preliminary results on Monday night showed that he had won by the biggest margin in more than three decades. But the election had been marred by complaints of vote buying and broken ballot-counting machines.Ms. Robredo said that her team was still looking into the reports of voter fraud but stressed that “as the picture becomes clearer, we need to start accepting that the results of the elections did not go according to our plan.”“We need to accept the majority’s decision,” she said. “I plead that you join me in this cause.”Ms. Robredo then criticized the “massive machinery to spread hate and lies,” without elaborating. “This stole the truth, as it also stole our history and future,” she said.Disinformation isn’t unique to the Philippines, but it has flourished in recent campaigns. The outcome of this election shows how the Marcos family has been successful, at least in part, in rebranding its legacy. It has told Filipinos to “move on” from its sordid past and emphasized that the violent 20-year rule of Ferdinand E. Marcos was marked by dozens of infrastructure projects and strong economic growth.“I will channel all my energy in fighting lies,” Ms. Robredo said. “And I ask you to join me in this fight.”Ms. Robredo greeting supporters after speaking on Friday. Although she didn’t offer a formal concession, her remarks acknowledged her almost certain defeat.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMany of the young supporters in the crowd cried when they saw her take the stage. In the months leading up to the election, hundreds of thousands of them had mounted an unprecedented grass-roots movement, going door to door to campaign for the only woman in the race. Her supporters saw her as the antithesis to Mr. Marcos, touting her as a leader with a track record who could bring about change.Ms. Robredo’s remarks came after her running mate, Senator Francis Pangilinan, who ran for vice president, told their supporters that “the fight is still far from over, especially at this point when lies and deceit are gaining ground.”Understand the Philippines Presidential ElectionCard 1 of 4A consequential election. More

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      The Man Who Could Ruin the Philippines Forever

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      Ferdinand Marcos Jr., known as Bongbong, was convicted of tax evasion. He also lied about his academic degree, according to Oxford University. Victims of his father’s brutal regime — which lasted for 20 years until his ouster in 1986 — accuse the younger Mr. Marcos of whitewashing history.Yet Mr. Marcos, the unapologetic heir of the family that plundered billions of dollars from us Filipinos, is — absent a major upset — poised to win the presidential election on May 9.This is possible only because our democracy has long been ailing. Disinformation is rewriting our past and clouding our present. Filipinos are disillusioned with our system of government. And the impunity of family dynasties in politics has gutted its two essential functions: to allow us to fairly choose our leaders and to hold them accountable for how they fail us. The return to power of the Marcoses may deal it the final blow.It’s heartbreaking to remember what could have been. Thirty-six years ago, Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s “constitutional authoritarianism,” as he described his government, came to an end when his family fled the country after millions of Filipinos united to support Corazon Aquino, the widow of an assassinated senator whose popularity had threatened the regime’s control. We flooded the streets and won back our freedom and, in 1987, wrote a new Constitution to guide our country. Democracy seemed to have repudiated autocracy.But over the years, our leaders’ broken promises accumulated and led to our disenchantment. Administration after administration was blighted by dysfunction, corruption and injustice. Year after year, our elected representatives refused to pass laws prohibiting political dynasties, despite the fact that our Constitution had tasked them with doing so.The new millennium eventually brought better governance and much-vaunted economic momentum, yet too many Filipinos remained marginalized. In 2011, for example, a mere 40 individuals reaped more than three-fourths of our country’s wealth increase. And a good part of our country’s economic growth came from the millions of Filipinos who were forced abroad to seek, and remit, their livelihood. All while crime, drugs and inequality persisted across our homeland.Throughout those three decades of our hard-won democracy, its most vital function — letting the people choose who will represent us — was perverted by entrenched politicians. Call it the dictatorship of dynasties. As of 2019, some 234 families, in a country of nearly 110 million people, held 67 percent of the legislature, 80 percent of governorships and 53 percent of mayoralties.Our democracy’s other main function — allowing us to hold our leaders accountable — has also been hijacked. When Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency in 2016 by promising to sacrifice democratic freedoms for bullet-fast results against crime and corruption, that came to include the dismantling of checks and balances that could prevent or punish his abuse of power.Institutions that could hold him to account for the thousands of deaths from his drug war were stacked with lackeys. The coequal branches of the legislature and judiciary were brought under the presidency’s heel. Laws were weaponized to control speech and dissent. The news media was both kicked and muzzled as the public’s watchdog, and orchestrated falsehoods and historical revisionism now inundate the 92 million Filipinos on social media, who get our news mostly online.In other ways, too, Mr. Duterte is responsible for normalizing authoritarianism, which may be yet another thing Mr. Marcos effortlessly inherits. One of Mr. Duterte’s first actions as president in 2016 was to transfer the elder Mr. Marcos’s preserved corpse from the family’s refrigerated mausoleum for burial in our national cemetery of heroes. And Mr. Duterte’s daughter, Sara, is now campaigning with the younger Mr. Marcos and is the leading candidate for vice president, who is elected separately from the president.Despite the incumbent’s apparent disdain for Mr. Marcos — Mr. Duterte has implied that he is a weak leader and a drug user — their shared affinities are undeniable as the younger pair promises to continue Mr. Duterte’s grim legacy.Their popularity indicates that our past fight for democratic freedom has been largely forgotten, with 56 percent of the Filipino voting population now between ages 18 and 41. A 2017 poll found that half of us Filipinos favor authoritarian governance, and an alarming number of us even approve of military rule. Yet the same poll showed that 82 percent of us say we believe in representative democracy. The contradiction seems to overlook what our history teaches about our giving leaders unchecked power.No wonder we elected Mr. Duterte, who has bragged about being a killer. No wonder we’re poised to re-elect a family of thieves. And no wonder Mr. Marcos thrives as a mythmaker — varnishing himself and his family as harmless underdogs, victims of theft by an untouchable elite who stole his vice presidency, his parents’ tenure over our country’s so-called golden age and his family’s right to control their own narrative against what he calls “propaganda” and “fake news.”Yet even as Mr. Marcos casts himself as the heir to his family’s dynasty, he refuses to acknowledge its many proven crimes, much less be held complicit for his role in defending the dictatorship. He has also pledged to protect Mr. Duterte from the International Criminal Court and has formed a political cartel with the Dutertes and two past presidents, who were both jailed for corruption. Worst of all, he has relentlessly shrugged off the facts of our nation’s history, telling everyone to “move on” from its long struggle against the authoritarianism he and his family led.But as the present hurtles forward on May 9, the truths of our past matter more than ever. From that history, a martyred writer and our national hero, José Rizal, reminds us: “There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.” Yet so many of us have been shackled before by so many of those we freely elected to entrust our future to — from Adolf Hitler to Vladimir Putin to another brazen liar also named Ferdinand Marcos.Miguel Syjuco, a former contributing Opinion writer, is the author, most recently, of “I Was the President’s Mistress!!: A Novel.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Ahead of Philippines Election, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Rises

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      Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has spent his political career trying to rehabilitate the family name. As the front-runner in the upcoming election, he may finally succeed.MANILA — They bopped along to the beat of a martial law anthem updated into a pop tune. They cheered when an A-list celebrity proclaimed that the spirit of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the former dictator, was alive. And when Mr. Marcos’s son and namesake held up the peace sign made popular by his father a generation ago, the shrieking crowds mirrored it in return.It is election season in the Philippines, and history is being rewritten, one campaign rally at a time.Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has spent decades defending his family’s name against accusations of greed and corruption and downplaying the legacy of his father’s brutal rule. During his presidential campaign, he has portrayed himself as a unifier, while false narratives online reimagine his father’s regime as a “golden era” in the nation’s history.Now, as patriarch of the Marcos dynasty, Mr. Marcos is expected to be the first person to win the presidential election in the Philippines by a majority in more than three decades.The race is being cast as a competition between those who remember the past and those who are accused of trying to distort it, the last chapter in a brazen attempt to absolve the Marcoses of wrongdoing and quash any effort to hold the family accountable. Five years of President Rodrigo Duterte — a strong Marcos ally known for his bloody war on drugs and for jailing his critics — may have presaged a Marcos family comeback.“It will determine not just our future but our past,” said Maria Ressa, a journalist and Nobel Prize winner who is an outspoken critic of both Mr. Duterte and Mr. Marcos.Supporters at a rally cheering for Mr. Marcos, who has spent decades defending his family’s name against accusations of greed and corruption.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesThe Marcoses are accused of looting as much as $10 billion from the government before fleeing to Hawaii in 1986, when the peaceful “People Power” protests toppled the Marcos regime. The family returned to the country shortly after the death of the elder Mr. Marcos in 1989.Despite the exile, the Marcos name never truly left the political establishment.Mr. Marcos, known by his boyhood nickname, “Bongbong,” served as vice governor, governor and congressman in Ilocos Norte, the family stronghold, for most of the period between the 1980s and 2010. That year, he entered the national political scene when he was elected senator. Imelda Marcos, his 92-year-old mother, ran for president twice and lost in the 1990s.Rehabilitating the family name has been a recurring theme. Over the decades, the Marcoses have sought to target young voters with no memory of martial law or the torture and killing of political prisoners. Fifty-six percent of the voting population in the Philippines is aged between 18 and 41, and most did not witness the atrocities of the Marcos regime — ideal circumstances for the spread of disinformation, opponents say.A voter holding a portrait of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the dictator, and his wife, Imelda Marcos. The Marcoses are accused of looting as much as $10 billion from the Philippine government before fleeing to Hawaii in 1986. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesIn January, Twitter said it had removed more than 300 accounts promoting Mr. Marcos’s presidential bid for violating rules on spam and manipulation. The influential Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines said in a statement that it was appalled by the “historical revisionism” in the election, and “the attempt to delete or destroy our collective memory through the seeding of lies and false narratives.”Mr. Marcos’s spokesman, Vic Rodriguez, said there was “no certainty” that the Twitter accounts belonged to his supporters. Last week, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it had suspended more than 400 election-related accounts, pages and groups for violating its standards. The company cited a video on Mr. Marcos’s official Facebook page that falsely accused his election rival, Leni Robredo, who is vice president, of cheating in the 2016 vice-presidential race. (The president and vice president are elected separately in the Philippines.)Several groups have sought to disqualify Mr. Marcos’s candidacy, pointing to a 1995 tax evasion conviction and the $3.9 billion in estate taxes that his family still owes the government. Mr. Marcos, 64, has brushed off the attacks as “fake news,” and refused to participate in nearly all presidential debates.Instead, Mr. Marcos has used social media to reach a captive audience online, reviewing viral TikTok dances and agreeing to makeovers.Live streaming Mr. Marcos’s motorcade south of Manila. Instead of participating in debates, Mr. Marcos has used social media to reach a captive audience online, reviewing viral TikTok dances and agreeing to makeovers.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesAt a rally in Las Piñas, Ella Mae Alipao, 15, said that she got most of her news about Mr. Marcos from TikTok and Facebook, and that she did not “believe much in books.” After Mr. Marcos’s father was ousted, Ms. Alipao said, “the Filipinos found out how good he was; that’s when they realized that they should have made him president for a longer time.”Mr. Marcos has made similar comments: “I’m not going to vindicate my father’s name because his name doesn’t need vindication,” he said in 1995. “I am so confident that history will judge him well.”In the 36 years since the father was ousted, many Filipinos have become disillusioned with the country’s democracy. Poverty is widespread, income inequality remains high and few people trust their elected leaders. When Mr. Duterte came to power, he promised radical change, ushering in a new era of strongman politics that has been embraced by many across the country.The names of those who died during the Marcos regime are etched on a wall at a memorial site in Quezon City. Opponents fear a Marcos victory would amount to rewriting history.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMr. Duterte formed an alliance with the Marcoses early in his six-year presidential term. In 2016, he arranged for the father’s body to be moved tothe Philippines’ equivalent of Arlington National Cemetery, despite protests. And it was not until Sara Duterte, Ms. Duterte’s daughter, made the surprise announcement that she would run for vice president instead of president that Mr. Marcos gained his large lead in the polls.In recent weeks, the opposition has been working furiously to counter the false narratives online about the Marcoses. Sergio Osmena III, a former political prisoner, senator and a grandson of the fourth president of the Philippines, said he had hired 10,000 volunteers to wage a counteroffensive against the Marcos campaign by releasing videos on the economic devastation and human rights violations of the Marcos years.“It’s probably too late,” he said.The Marcoses have been remarkably adept at avoiding jail time. Mr. Marcos was sentenced to up to three years in prison in 1995 for tax-related convictions, but his sentence was overturned on appeal two years later, even though his conviction remained on the books. In 2018, his mother was sentenced to up to 11 years in prison for creating private foundations to hide her unexplained wealth. She posted bail, and the Supreme Court is still reviewing her appeal.Waiting to catch a glimpse of the Marcos motorcade south of Manila. “I’m not going to vindicate my father’s name because his name doesn’t need vindication,” Mr. Marcos said in 1995. Jes Aznar for The New York TimesThe government has recovered just $3.3 billion of the estimated $10 billion that the Marcoses are accused of stealing, but $2.4 billion in assets are still under litigation, with various groups tussling over them. Should Mr. Marcos win the presidency, many fear those proceedings, along with the $3.9 billion in estate taxes, will be swept away, cementing the false idea that the Marcoses are innocent.Among some young voters, that view has already taken hold. “If he is a thief, how come he hasn’t been jailed?” asked Rjay Garcia, a 19-year-old rug salesman, at a recent rally in the city of Santa Rosa. Mr. Garcia said that he believed the cases against Mr. Marcos’s family were meant “to destroy his reputation,” and that he had “never heard” of the People Power protests.Even those with intimate memories of the country’s struggle for democracy may feel it is time to move on.Benjamin Abalos Jr., Mr. Marcos’s campaign manager, led protests against the Marcos regime as a student council officer of the Ateneo Law School. He said he never talked about those days with his candidate. “Whatever justice was achieved in those 36 years, I think that’s already enough,” he said. “Perhaps now it’s about moving forward.”Such attitudes could signal that a full rehabilitation of the Marcos name may soon be complete. The family now includes a governor, a senator, a mayor and a possible congressman. Mr. Marcos’s eldest son, Ferdinand Alexander, 28, is running for a congressional seat in Ilocos Norte, where his cousin, Matthew Marcos Manotoc, is governor.Volunteers and supporters in front of a campaign logo for Mr. Marcos and Sara Duterte, the daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte. Mr. Marcos has seized on his alliance with the Dutertes to present himself as a unifier.Jes Aznar for The New York TimesMr. Marcos has seized on his alliance with Ms. Duterte to present himself as a unifier who is ready to lead, but his political track record is mostly thin.While in his six years in the Senate he helped pass laws on protecting older people and expanding emergency relief to children, nearly 70 percent of the 52 laws he pushed for were on designating holidays and festivals, renaming highways and reapportioning provinces and cities, a review by The New York Times found.An investigation in 2015 found that his résumé on the Senate website had been embellished to include a bachelor of arts from the University of Oxford. The university later said he did not complete his degree, but obtained instead a special diploma in social studies. Mr. Marcos has denied misrepresenting his education.Though Mr. Marcos is seen as the front-runner in the May 9 election, rallies for Ms. Robredo, the vice president, have drawn hundreds of thousands of young supporters in recent weeks. Hecklers have shouted “magnanakaw,” or “thief,” at Mr. Marcos’s motorcade, and the petitions to disqualify his candidacy are still under appeal, though experts say they are unlikely to succeed.“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” said Ms. Ressa, the journalist, recalling a quote from the author Milan Kundera. She described the election as a “microcosm of a global battle for facts.”“If facts don’t win,” she said, “we’ll have a whole new history.”Waving campaign posters and flashing the peace sign made popular by Mr. Marcos’s father, a dictator who oversaw the torture and killing of political prisoners in the Philippines.Jes Aznar for The New York Times More

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      Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines Won't Run for Senate

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      The populist president also promised a peaceful transition of power when his term ends next year.MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines on Tuesday ended his bid for a Senate seat in next May’s elections, one day after promising a peaceful transition of power.It was a surprising move by the populist, ruthless Mr. Duterte, who is constitutionally barred from seeking another six-year presidential term. He had previously announced plans to run as vice president, in what critics charged was part of a scheme to hang on to power unofficially and ward off possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court. A report from that court has said there was sufficient evidence to show that crimes against humanity had been committed in Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war, which has left thousands dead.However, he dropped the vice-presidential plan in October and announced that his chief aide, Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, would run instead.Another widely reported possibility had been that Sara Duterte-Carpio, his popular daughter, would seek the presidency, but she has chosen instead to run for vice president. She is effectively the running mate of presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late dictator who was ousted in 1986 after two decades in power.Mr. Duterte, 76, then said he would seek a post in the Senate. If he won, he would have at least a semblance of protection from outside forces seeking to prosecute him.But on Tuesday, both Mr. Duterte and Mr. Go separately ended their candidacies.It is not clear what Mr. Duterte plans next. He has vehemently denied the criminal accusations against him, and his aides have said that no International Criminal Court prosecutor would be allowed into the Philippines.Last week, Mr. Duterte attended President Biden’s Summit for Democracy, where he reiterated his nation’s commitment to democratic principles.A spokesman for Mr. Duterte said in a statement that the Philippines’ leader believed that withdrawing from the Senate race would allow him to better focus on the Covid-19 pandemic response and on efforts to ensure “transparent, impartial, orderly and peaceful elections” in May.On Monday night, in his weekly televised address to the nation, Mr. Duterte said: “As I step down in June 2022, it will be my highest honor to turn over the reins of power to my successor knowing that in the exercise of my mandate, I did my best to serve the Filipino people.”According to early polls, the Marcos Jr. and Duterte-Carpio ticket leads a crowded presidential field. Also running are the boxer-turned-politician Manny Pacquiao, a former national police chief and Francisco Domagoso, the mayor of Manila.In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately. While the vice presidency is a largely ceremonial job, analysts say that if an opposition figure holds the post, it can provide a semblance of checks and balances on the chief executive. More

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      Rodrigo Duterte to Run for Senate in the Philippines

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      Rodrigo Duterte entered the race days after his daughter announced her bid for vice president. He had previously said he would leave politics at the end of his term.Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, will run for Senate in next year’s elections, the secretary-general of Mr. Duterte’s political party said on Monday. The announcement was a reversal of Mr. Duterte’s previously stated plan to retire and came just days after Sara Duterte, his daughter, filed her papers to run for vice president.Mr. Duterte entered the race just before the final filing deadline. On Saturday, his press secretary said Mr. Duterte intended to run for vice president, against Ms. Duterte.That political intrigue was another twist in the start of a competitive and unpredictable election, which will take place in May. More than 90 candidates have entered the race for president, including Manny Pacquiao, the former champion boxer, and Senator Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, a top aide to Mr. Duterte.Ms. Duterte had been widely considered a presidential front-runner before Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the former dictator, said on Saturday that she would back him as president and run on his ticket as vice president.By staying in politics, Mr. Duterte could harness his network to try to protect himself from criminal charges. He is currently being investigated by the International Criminal Court for his bloody and heavily criticized war on drugs and has repeatedly said he would not allow I.C.C. investigators to enter the country.Mr. Duterte is still widely popular in the Philippines, despite his penchant for vulgar outbursts and his brutal campaign against drugs. Many have credited him for starting social-welfare policies like universal health care, free college education and, during the pandemic, cash handouts.But in August when Mr. Duterte first flirted with the idea of running for vice president, many Filipinos saw it as an overreach. The Philippine Constitution limits presidents to a single, six-year term. Social Weather Survey, a top public opinion research body, found that 60 percent of people polled said it would be unconstitutional for him to seek the V.P. spot.Mr. Duterte later said he would retire after his current term came to an end.When Mr. Duterte appeared to renew his interest in running for vice president on Saturday, it sent a shock wave throughout the country. But Harry Roque, the spokesman for Mr. Duterte, said on Monday that the president and his daughter “love each other.”“They will never clash, they will never fight over any position,” Mr. Roque told reporters.On Sunday, Ms. Duterte released a video on Facebook in which she said her decision to run for vice president would allow her to meet her supporters “halfway.”“It’s a path that would allow me to heed your call to serve our country, and would make me a stronger person and public servant in the years that lie ahead,” she said.Jason Gutierrez More

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      Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Enters Philippine Presidential Race

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      Ferdinand Marcos Jr. joins the former boxing champion Manny Pacquiao in seeking to succeed Rodrigo Duterte in next year’s election.MANILA — The son and namesake of the dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos formally announced his plan to run for president of the Philippines on Tuesday, more than three decades after a popular uprising toppled his father’s brutal regime and restored democracy to the country.Ferdinand Marcos Jr. joins the former boxing champion Manny Pacquiao and Francisco Domagoso, the mayor of Manila, in seeking the presidency in next year’s election. Leni Robredo, the vice president, and Sara Duterte-Carpio, the mayor of Davao City and daughter of President Rodrigo Duterte, are also expected to enter the race.Mr. Marcos, 64, once served as a governor and a senator. He lost his bid as vice president to Ms. Robredo in 2016, and sought to overturn that vote by accusing her of cheating. In his announcement on Tuesday, Mr. Marcos said he would focus on helping the public overcome the coronavirus pandemic, and vowed to lift the economy out of crisis.“That is why I am announcing here today my intention to run for the presidency of the Philippines in the coming May 2022 elections,” Mr. Marcos said. “I will bring that form of unifying leadership back to our country. Join me in this noblest of causes and we will succeed.”He also took an oath as a member of the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, the political party he would be representing in the election. The party founded by his father, the New Society Movement, also recently endorsed him as a candidate.Ferdinand Marcos ruled the country with an iron fist for two decades. He was defeated by a popular uprising in 1986 and went into exile in Hawaii, where he died three years later. He was accused of stealing up to $10 billion from state coffers and leaving thousands of activists dead or missing.His widow, Imelda R. Marcos, and children were later allowed to return to the Philippines, where they worked to rehabilitate the family name. Mrs. Marcos was found guilty of corruption in 2018, but has eluded jail time.Mr. Duterte, who announced his retirement last week, often publicly thanked the Marcos family for backing his candidacy in the 2016 presidential election. Just months into office, he allowed the dictator’s remains to be transferred to a national cemetery in Manila.Judy Taguiwalo, an activist with the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law, said the announcement from Mr. Marcos was a “brazen show of disregard and contempt for the thousands of Filipinos killed, disappeared, tortured, displaced and violated” during his father’s brutal regime.“Bongbong Marcos and his family have long been seeking to reclaim the highest seat of power after they were kicked out of the country by the people,” she said, referring to Mr. Marcos by his nickname, “and today, their shameless gall to return to the highest office in government is in full display.”Mr. Marcos, she said, was “spitting on the graves of the dead.” More

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      President Duterte Plans to Run for the Vice Presidency

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      The president of the Philippines says he’ll run for the vice presidency next year. Critics see a plot to avoid prosecution for the killings in his drug war.MANILA — Rodrigo Duterte has dominated politics in the Philippines since becoming president five years ago, with an antidrug crusade blamed for thousands of extrajudicial killings and a pressure campaign against opposition leaders and the news media.Now, with mere months left in his six-year term, his opponents fear he is laying the groundwork to stay in power for years to come.Mr. Duterte announced this week that he intended to run for the vice presidency in the elections next May. Critics say it is a blatant attempt by Mr. Duterte, 76, to save himself from his “political sins” as he confronts possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court. An I.C.C. report last year said there was sufficient evidence to show that crimes against humanity had been committed in Mr. Duterte’s bloody drug war, which has left thousands dead.But Mr. Duterte says he still has unfinished business, chiefly the drug war and his fight against the country’s Communist insurgency.“I may not have the power to give direction or guidance, but I can always express my views in public,” he said of his potential new role as vice president.He has long flirted with the idea of staying on in government, though he repeatedly said during the past year that he was tired of the presidency, which he claimed had taken a toll on his health.Then, late Wednesday, during a nationally televised cabinet meeting, Mr. Duterte said unequivocally: “All right, I will run for the vice presidency. Then I will continue the crusade.”The political and defense analyst Chester Cabalza, founder of the Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, a research institute, said Mr. Duterte’s decision was clearly meant to save him from prosecution.Jimboy Bolasa, 25, of Manila was found dead in 2016 with gunshot wounds and signs of torture. His killing was one of thousands that have been attributed to Mr. Duterte’s drug war. Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times“However, international laws are tested to have teeth against world leaders who have committed crimes against humanity,” Mr. Cabalza said in an interview. “And this will not spare him from his political sins.”In addition, he said, Mr. Duterte likes to be portrayed as the man in charge, and playing second fiddle is clearly not his style.“We will see clashes and divides if this happens,” Mr. Cabalza said, adding that the president’s fading health could also work against him.In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately, with each serving a single six-year term. The Constitution bars a president from seeking re-election, but it allows him or her to run for a lower office afterward.Two graft-tainted former presidents, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, were elected to other public offices after their terms as leader of the country ended.There is no legal reason why Mr. Duterte cannot be prosecuted as president, but he has made it clear that he would defy any summons by the international court. A vice president would have less power to do so, but Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go as the presidential candidate.If both men win, political experts say, Mr. Go can either resign to allow Mr. Duterte to step in as leader or let Mr. Duterte rule the country by proxy, ensuring he escapes prosecution.Harry Roque, the president’s spokesman, confirmed on Thursday said that all Mr. Duterte was waiting for now was for Mr. Go “to make up his mind” about his candidacy.Mr. Go did not return a phone call requesting comment and has not publicly addressed the issue of running for president. In a statement to local reporters, he said of Mr. Duterte: “I promised him that I will serve him as long as he lives. And that promise includes taking care of his children when he is gone.”Mr. Duterte hopes to run in tandem with Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, left, as the presidential candidate.King Rodrigues/Presidential Photo Division, via Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Duterte’s decision puts him on a collision course with his daughter, Sara Duterte, the mayor of the city of Davao. She has shored up popularity as a potential successor to his father but is not a member of his political party.She appeared not to be amused by the latest development. She said that her father had informed her ahead of time about his decision and that “it was not a pleasant event.”Mr. Roque, for his part, said he did not wish to comment on an internal “family affair.”Among other figures who have indicated they planned to contest the presidency are Senator Manny Pacquiao, the boxing star who parlayed his sports popularity into a career in politics; Francisco Domagoso, the current mayor of Manila, who was once a matinee idol known as Isko Moreno; and Vice President Leni Robredo, the opposition leader, who is a lawyer and a former member of Congress.The former congressman Neri Colmenares, a human rights lawyer, said Mr. Duterte’s announcement appeared to be an attempt to perpetuate his own political dynasty. He suggested that the president was exploiting the Constitution.Mr. Duterte remains popular in the impoverished Philippines, though his luster has been dimmed somewhat by corruption allegations and the extrajudicial killings, according to various surveys. Corruption accusations have also hounded Mr. Duterte’s Covid-19 response; he has refused to fire his health secretary over discrepancies in the accounting of state funds.“He is now a lame duck and will surely lose in the 2022 elections,” Mr. Colmenares predicted.Mr. Colmenares, who is one of a group of lawyers who brought charges against Mr. Duterte before the I.C.C., added, “His craving for immunity only shows he is afraid of the International Criminal Court after all his bluster of being a fearless president.”The only way for Mr. Duterte to escape prosecution is for him to stay on as president, Mr. Colmenares added, and the only way he can do that is through the back door.“He’s hoping to escape prosecution after he is out of power,” he said. “It is not only legally insane, but also exposes his real fear of going to prison.” More