PARTIDO Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) standard-bearer Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr. is now the only presidential hopeful for this year’s elections surnamed Marcos, according to the latest list of candidates released by the Commission on Elections (Comelec).
The Comelec’s list of aspirants updated as recently as January 4, 2022, showed Marcos Jr. as presidential candidate number eight.
The number eight is long regarded as the luckiest number in Chinese culture.
The list started with 97 presidential hopefuls and whittled to 15 before Christmas.
Its current number stands at 11 even as the poll body previously removed four potential candidates who were all deemed ‘nuisance’.
Among those recently struck from the list is Maria Aurora Marcos, a businesswoman from Tarlac who filed her candidacy for president last October 2021.
Meanwhile, Tiburcio Marcos, another Marcos gunning for the presidency, was removed by Comelec from the list before December 25, 2021.
Various groups have filed seven petitions with the Comelec to derail Marcos Jr.’s candidacy in the 2022 national polls.
The Comelec recently denied the petition filed by declared nuisance candidate Tiburcio Marcos which sought to cancel Marcos Jr.’s Certificate of Candidacy (CoC).
Tiburcio alleged that Bongbong is an impostor. Comelec announced it had junked the petition on January 4, 2022.
Another petition, this time filed by Danilo Lihaylihay sought to declare Bongbong as a nuisance candidate only to be junked by the Comelec on December 16, 2021.
The BBM-Sara UniTeam has consistently topped various non-commissioned presidential and vice-presidential preference surveys conducted by reputable polling firms.
In the latest pre-election polling conducted by OCTA Research, Marcos Jr. led all the presidential aspirants as he garnered 54 percent of the votes in the presidential preference survey.
His running-mate Davao City Mayor Inday Sara Duterte received 50 percent of votes in the vice-presidential race from the 1,200 respondents.
Both candidates have been busy providing help in areas recently hit by Super Typhoon ‘Odette.’
They mobilized a network of volunteers to provide relief goods, cash assistance, much-needed water filtration units, and satellite broadband communication equipment to the hardest-hit areas.
The BBM-Sara UniTeam also recently suspended its caravans and political activities to ensure the safety of its supporters and the public amid the surge in Covid-19 due to the highly transmissible Omicron variant.