Sweltering Philippines votes with Marcos-Duterte feud centre stage

MANILA — Millions of Filipinos braved long lines and soaring temperatures on Monday to vote in a mid-term election largely defined by the explosive feud between President Ferdinand Marcos and impeached Vice President Sara Duterte.

With temperatures hitting 34 degrees Celsius (in some places, George Garcia, head of the Commission on Elections (Comelec), said some voting machines were "overheating".

"It's slowing the voting process," he told reporters at a prison in southern Manila where inmates were casting ballots.

"Due to the extreme heat, the ink [on the ballots] does not dry immediately, and the ballot ends up stuck on the scanners," Garcia said, adding officials in some areas were resorting to aiming electric fans at the machines.

Monday's election will decide more than 18,000 posts, from seats in the House of Representatives to hotly contested municipal offices.

It is the battle for the Senate, however, that carries potentially major implications for the presidential election in 2028.

The 12 senators chosen nationally on Monday will form half the jury in an impeachment trial of Duterte later this year that could see her permanently barred from public office.

Duterte's long-running feud with former ally Marcos erupted in February when she was impeached by the House for alleged "high crimes", including corruption and an assassination plot against the president.

Barely a month later, her father -- former president Rodrigo Duterte -- was arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague to face a charge of crimes against humanity over his deadly drug crackdown.

On Monday, 53-year-old Roland Agasa, one of the country's 68 million registered voters, said the feud had taken a mental toll heading into election day.

"The government is getting stressful," he said outside a Manila elementary school where the polling station was on the fourth and fifth floors.

"I hope we choose the deserving, those who can help the country," Agasa said, adding he planned to wait until the day cooled before braving the stairs to cast his vote.

"There was no pushing, but it was cramped. It was difficult, but we endured so that we could vote," Rizza Bacolod, 32, said at the same location.

Marcos cast his vote at an elementary school in his family's traditional stronghold of Ilocos Norte province. His mother Imelda, 95, was at his side.

Numbers game

Sara Duterte, who cast her vote at a high school in her family's southern bailiwick of Davao, will need nine votes in the 24-seat senate to preserve any hope of a future presidential run.

Heading into Monday, seven of the candidates polling in the top 12 were endorsed by Marcos, while four were aligned with his vice president.

Two, including the president's independent-minded sister Imee Marcos, were "adopted" as honorary members of the Duterte family's PDP-Laban Party on Saturday.

The move to add Marcos and television personality Camille Villar to the party's slate was intended to add "more allies to protect the Vice President against impeachment", according to a party resolution.

Despite his detention at The Hague, Rodrigo Duterte remains on the ballot in Davao city, where he is seeking to retake his former job as mayor.

Election violence

As polls opened on Monday, two men were killed and seven wounded in the central Philippines when men fired on a group outside a local party headquarters from a moving vehicle.

The Philippines has a long history of election violence, with armed groups of political rivals routinely fighting over positions that control local government spending.

A day before, at least two people were killed in a clash between supporters of rival political camps in southern Mindanao Island's autonomous Muslim region, the Philippine army reported.

National police have been on alert for more than a week, and around 163,000 officers have been deployed to secure polling stations, escort election officials and guard checkpoints.

Comelec last week said it had recorded 81 acts of "politically related" violence between January 12 and May 7. Police told AFP that 16 of those had resulted in death.