Leni Robredo Is the Solely Lady within the Philippines Presidential Race

The 2 prime candidates in Monday’s presidential election supply Filipino voters a stark selection: the nation’s vice chairman who has served as a verify on President Rodrigo Duterte versus the scion of the Philippines’ most controversial political household.

Leni Robredo, who was elected individually from Mr. Duterte, is an outspoken critic of the president and a frequent goal of his insults. She is polling a far second behind the front-runner, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the one son and namesake of the previous dictator.

However maybe the largest shock on this election has been the groundswell of support for Ms. Robredo from “Generation Z” and thousands of millennials. Lots of her supporters are first-time voters, or are too younger to vote.

Ms. Robredo, the widow of a authorities minister who died in a 2012 aircraft crash, has drawn comparisons to Corazon Aquino, the nation’s former president who was swept into workplace after the assassination of her husband, Benigno Aquino, and the massive “Folks Energy” revolt that ousted the Marcos regime.

However Ms. Robredo, who has served as a congresswoman and labored as a lawyer and an economist, is extra politically skilled than Mrs. Aquino was. In 2016, she beat Mr. Marcos narrowly to win the vice presidency. Ms. Robredo has vowed to cease the extrajudicial killings within the violent drug battle overseen by Mr. Duterte.

In an interview, Tricia Robredo, one among Ms. Robredo’s daughters, mentioned her mom had been reluctant to run as a result of she had informed her household that she wouldn’t run for workplace once more. “It was a promise to her daughters and the larger purpose, which is to forestall a Marcos from being president once more,” mentioned the youthful Ms. Robredo. “I believe these had been the issues that had been going by way of her head.”

However when nobody emerged as an unifying opposition candidate to tackle Mr. Marcos, she threw her title within the ring late final yr.