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MANILA: The Philippine election season kicked off on Tuesday with the world's best boxer and the defiant wife of a late former leader among the dizzying array of characters hoping to grab a share of power.
Fifty million voters will choose a new president and thousands of lower positions on May 10, after nine years of rule under Gloria Arroyo that critics say has done little to improve the impoverished Southeast Asian's fortunes.
"We must end this prevailing system of affairs," declared one of the presidential frontrunners, Benigno Aquino, as he launched his official campaign at a church in his hometown of Concepcion in the rural northern Philippines.
"It is clear to us what needs to be changed and how we will go about effecting change."
But observers warned that candidates' promises of change, in a country long-plagued by corruption, poor infrastructure and massive poverty, were likely to prove hollow.
"I don't think there will be any change in the idiosyncracies that define the Philippines," Robert Broadfoot, managing director of the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy group, told AFP.
The official start of the election season on Tuesday allowed the presidential candidates to hold rallies and appeal directly to people for their votes, while spending limits on advertising took effect.
"Noynoy" Aquino spectacularly rode into contention last year on a wave of sympathy following the death of his mother, democracy heroine Corazon Aquino.
However his huge lead in surveys has eroded almost as quickly as it was gained, with mega-rich property developer Manny Villar having caught him with nearly 40 percent support in surveys following an advertising spending spree.
Adding spice to the presidential race is deposed former president Joseph Estrada's attempt at political resurrection, after he was deposed halfway through his first term in 2001 and later convicted of corruption.
Estrada is running third in the surveys and, although an outside chance, analysts said the former B-grade movie star could yet achieve his wish of redemption.
"It's going to be difficult for him, but he has 100 percent name recognition across the country -- it depends on how diligently he runs his campaign," said Ronald Holmes, a political lecturer at De La Salle University in Manila.
The ruling coalition's choice to succeed President Gloria Arroyo, former defence minister Gilberto Teodoro, is running a distant fourth with just five percent support in the latest surveys.
However Holmes, also president of polling firm Pulse Asia, said picking a winner three months from the election was impossible, and even Teodoro had a chance if the coalition's formidable machinery could kick into action.
For an international audience, much interest will focus on Manny Pacquiao, the seven-time world champion boxer who is running for a lower house seat in the nation's parliament.
Pacquiao is counting on his hero status across the country to get him elected, but he failed in a similar bid in the 2007 Congressional elections and Holmes said could again be struck a knock-out political blow.
"It's going to be difficult for him. He is up against someone who has been in local politics for a long time," Holmes said.
Also seeking a seat in the House of Representatives is Imelda Marcos, the 80-year-old wife of former leader Ferdinand Marcos, whose rule ended in 1986 with the people power revolution led by Corazon Aquino.
Imelda is regarded as a near certainty to win the seat in the northern province of Ilocos Norte that is being vacated by her son, Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, as the family has maintained its grip on power there for decades.
Meanwhile, President Gloria Arroyo, who is not allowed under the constitution to seek re-election, has controversially registered to run for a lower house seat in her home province of Pampagna.
Arroyo's critics have warned she may secretly be aiming to use a parliamentary position as a power base to change the constitution and allow her to return to power as the country's first prime minister.
While the presidential candidates' election season began on Tuesday, those vying for lower positions will not be allowed to officially begin campaigning until March 26.
- AFP/ir
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