News Analysis: 4-cornered fight for the Philippine presidency in the offing

Although the next presidential election in the Philippines is still eight months away, Filipinos from all walks of life are now deeply immersed in their favorite pastime with the election mania now heating up.

The current president, Benigno Aquino III, is barred from running for re-election after his six-year term ends in June next year, thus there is a vacancy in the highest administrative post in the country.

An election system practically copied from the United States, the country's former colonial master, elections in the Philippines are rowdy and oftentimes deadly with scores of partisan supporters killed during the campaign.

With the formal announcement of her long-anticipated run for the presidency Wednesday night, Sen. Grace Poe is currently the third candidate for president, after Vice President Jejomar Binay and former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.

Rodrigo Duterte, the maverick mayor of Davao City in Mindanao in the southern Philippines, is expected to formally announce his candidacy for president next week. Duterte has recently said he is retiring from politics next year but millions of his rabid supporters are not taking "No" for an answer and he is reportedly going to backtrack from his previous announcement and make a run for the presidency.

If Mayor Duterte finally runs, it will be a four-cornered fight for Aquino's replacement in the elections scheduled in May next year.

Poe, the adopted daughter of the late Fernando Poe, Jr., a movie actor in the l970s who is popularly known by his initials FPJ, is running as an independent or without a distinct political party.

In her first political rally held at the campus of the University of the Philippines, Poe, who is a neophyte senator having been elected to her first-ever political position as senator only in 2013, has vowed to provide an alternative government to that of her opponents who are grizzled politicians.

There is a stark contrast in the life and background of the three candidates.

Poe is a foundling who was abandoned by her biological mother inside a church in the town of Jaro, in the province of Iloilo in central Philippines. She was later adopted by FPJ and his wife, Susan Roces, also a movie star.

Poe was educated and has lived in the U.S. with her family before moving back to the Philippines when her adoptive father ran and lost in the presidential elections in 2004.

Vice President Binay, who is running under the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) party, has a "rags to riches" story having been orphaned when he was a young boy but has struggled and worked his way through college and became a lawyer. He has been a long-time mayor of Makati City, the country's richest city and major business hub. Although a former ally of Aquino, Binay is running as an opposition candidate.

Roxas, on the other hand, is the candidate of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) and is the anointed candidate of Aquino. He has been a former senator, former congressman, and a former member of the Cabinet under three presidents, including the current one.

Roxas belongs to a wealthy and politically-influential family in the Philippines. He is the son of the late Gerry Roxas, a long- time senator, and grandson of Manuel Roxas, the first president of the Philippine Republic. Like many offspring of rich Filipino families, Roxas was educated in the U.S.

Although the official campaign has not started yet, the four candidates have already been barnstorming the country to tell the voters about their programs of government.

As the administration candidate, Roxas is banking on his party' s nationwide network and the support of Aquino who, despite some setbacks lately, has managed to score a high performance rating.

Roxas is using the "straight path" mantra of the administration, which means "clean" government, a not so subtle dig at the alleged rampant corruption during the past administrations.

Among the four candidates, Duterte has the most radical, if not scary, plans. He said if elected, he would abolish the legislature, establish a revolutionary government and work for a shift to a federal system to replace the existing republican form of government. Endi