Tic-Tok-Ticket: Philippine Electoral Alliances in the Digital Era

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Abstract

The Marcos-Duterte ticket in the 2022 Philippine presidential election was as improbable as it was effective, but how did it come together and how likely is the alliance to hold? In this paper, we exploit pre-election surveys alongside social-media data to understand the vote base and campaign strategist behind one of the most successful tickets in Filipino electoral history. Our analysis indicates the alliance was a marriage of political convenience and power asymmetry brokered by a positive-messaging campaign of national unity. Looking forward, however, the auspicious alliance also indicates potential fissures in a digital voter base that is highly connected, poorly informed, and easily polarized along both domestic and international dimensions. The research contributes to research on comparative electoral coalitions and democracy in the digital age.

Authors

• Aries Arugay, University of the Philippines-Diliman

• Dimitar D Gueorguiev, Syracuse University

• Aim Sinpeng, University of Sydney