the media watchdog estoppel is requesting licenses from the turkish websites of broadcaster deutsch of l to voice of america and urine use. it's the 1st time the regulator has used its mandate on foreign digital media outlets and holiday stories on our website down there and dot com. it's updated throughout the day. i just bear with me. so he'll rob the reminder of our top news stories. the eas top financial regulator is preparing banks for a possible russian cyber attack. that's according to the reuters news agency, which says banks are conducting fiber wargames. meanwhile, european leaders are on a diplomatic push to prevent a military conflict between the ukraine and russia, which has been the massive troops on the ukrainian border. french president, monroe macro is the latest needed to meet both the presidents of russia and ukraine . the u. s. is accusing wish of escalating tensions by planning more military

exercises in bella. ruth, russia says its training to repel any attack on its borders or that of batteries. verse convoys of us. the equipment has arrived in romania. that's where a 1000 american troops are headed in the coming days fell joined at $900.00 service members already there. it's part of an additional troop deployment ordered by president biden. candidates prime minister says truckers blocking a vital border crossing with the us are a threat to the country's economy. the so called freedom called boy wants vaccine requirements and other coded 19 restrictions scrapped except adler, ne, factually to this siege is unacceptable. the impacts on small businesses on manufacturers, on the supply, china, on going, whether it be barricades at the border or sieges in ottawa, we must do everything we can at every level of government to end it. what would really help is if the conservative party could tell us supporters to stop blocking

our economy and young home in the usa, growing number of democratic lead states are rolling back face mask mandates. on wednesday, the governor of new york state said it's in door bask policy for businesses would not be renewed when it expires on thursday. and the state of illinois, massachusetts say the bell and some mask requirements by the end of this month, must mandates have been a hot political issue across the us. and the u. k. prime minister boris johnson has indicated the last remaining cave at 19 restrictions may be scrapped early. that includes ending the requirement for people to self isolate. if they test positive, johnson says to reveal his plan for what he calls living with the virus later this month. and i'll be back with more news and hopefully you can follow all the stories on a website that al jazeera dot com next on out there. it's inside story that you stay with us. ah,

could a dictator, son become the next president of the philippines? ferdinand marco's junior emerges as the frontrunner to replace rodrigo to charity. so, what does the election tell us about the state of philippine politics today? this is inside story. ah, ah hello and welcome to the program. i'm how much of jerome campaigning has officially begun for the philippine elections? inmate. $67000000.00 voters are set to choose their representatives for congress

and local government, including governors and city mayors. but it's the race for president that attracting the most attention candidates are vying to replace rodrigo to tear it. the philippines has held a presidential election every 6 years since 1986. when the revolution toppled, the dictator ferdinand marco's his son, ferdinand marco's junior, as emerged as front runner. other contenders include a vocal detected critic, a former movie star, and a champion boxer. jamila alan de gum has more from manila for the 90 day election period has officially started in the philippines. and there are you thousands of candidates buying for around $18000.00 spots across the us in the philippines. the 8th best, the, the fair, dancing music and lots of catchy phrases and political things. but it doesn't make it any less vision. it's $22.00 and it's election. it's seen as the most contentious in recent,

a lot unique. i in any way that are candidates who can do many things under kind, and let's see that they are corrupt, but no, it's hard to find someone who is not corrupt. we have to consider their actions and how they're taking action. no. someone who is patriotic and who will put the country 1st began b o, i hope that the candidates will provide jobs and help the economy not on and off, just like now because sometimes people have something to eat and sometimes they don't have to, which keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poor. i mean, the next president is expected to inherit. i know president good number of challenges in the country. the country is facing it for is beaca nomic, recession and decade. staggering unemployment rate. each standard, it has promising reform unity and change what this election is, no different. most of the candidates are using their family connection money and popularity to get elected. so who are the leading candidates for nan?

marco's junior is leaving the opinion polls despite being accused of white washing his family's past to try and build a new image for himself. his running mate provides president, is one of president rodrigo to tear to his daughters. sarah, the current vice president, lenny robledo is the only female presidential candidate. the former human rights lawyer is a harsh critic of detect, a so called war on drugs. the mayor of manila and former movie star francisco dome i go so is also in the race. better known by his screen name is sco moreno. he's promised a strong stance against china's militarization of the south china sea. senator and boxing champion money puck yo has also question to turn his relationship with china . he's vowing to jail corrupt officials if elected ah. all right, let's bring in our guess in marchina, that's near the capital manila. then yellow around professor of journalism at the university of the philippines. he's also convenor of the election watchdog contra

dia, that means against fraud and paris, author and journalist criselda abas. and in manila, richard, hey daria and professor of political science at the polytechnic university of the philippines. he's the author of the book called the rise of to tear to a populous revolt against elite democracy. a warm welcome to you all. and thanks so much for joining the program today. criselda, let me start with you. what does the state of this election say about the state of philippines? politics today? oh, what basically for us, it's just, either we move forward or we go back. moving forward means undoing what the president has done and moving forward a more democratic goes, although that's kind of vague. but basically bringing back, you know, the rule of law human rights and she can equality

but moving back means going back. i mean means voting for marcus junior, the son of the lake and people somehow seem to have a solution that it was the golden age of the philippines and it was not. so going back basically would also mean unemployment. why are option money getting stolen from the coffers and you have, it would just be a repeat of what all the mark of his father has done. so that's essentially it for now. there are more things to be on earth, of course, but that would depend on how it would move forward. and even if we do move forward, it would still take time. it's not active, things will change overnight. there's not to be ah, through through to be corrected

a lot to straight up. and so it just depends on the kind of leadership that we would have this year. denila, i saw you nodding along to a lot of what criselda was saying there. it looked like you wanted to jump in, so please go ahead. of course, this is the make or break when it comes to whatever is left before democracy. so we know that there's a lot going on in the strike now with all the problems that you need, b and b of any. so the 2022 parts will basically be an indictment off that the se sean, although we do knowledge early us now mark or commanding need based on the surveys of both their preference with regard to those running for president. so there is a not to talk about right now and for me, from my media standpoint, i can see here that for me, awkward for me, sean is working very well for the america stamps. because right now, if ever,

he would end up that how i mean there, they said and showed race. it's something where there are certain finally, listen to something in the sense that there is to be a vast network of information going on. and we do our knowledge, the fact that for your media organizations check that b h their 1st b h, they're by us right now that we fact jackie and a lot of people are very concerned with what's happening and they do fact checking themselves. we see a high level of regions among the people right now. richard denila, there was talking about this information. i saw that you were also reacting to what he was saying. and i want to ask you from your perspective, how much is this information playing a role in the election thus far? and how much do you think it will play a role in the election going forward, or at least the campaigning? well, i mean, let's not kid ourselves here. words of freedom bongo marcus junior is concerned. he

doesn't even if he doesn't only have a commanding lead, it's increasingly looking like a prohibitive lead over all other rivals. he has more than twice the numbers of the 2nd closes, rival, the opposition leader, and then you're, though, i think its most fundamental level, i think what we're witnessing right now is what historians would call a counter revolution. this is about the marcus project of nostalgic politics. ready and the eviscerate sion of the greatest ideals, the promise, and the institutional legacy of the 1986, et cetera, will loosen, which toppled the marcus as should current trends stand. and imelda, marcos and the rest of the family find themselves back in the presidential palace. we are talking about nothing less than a regime change. so for me, this is the most important phillip in electrons, at least in the past half a century. and the stakes are extremely high. and let's see whether the trend lines will hold in the coming weeks and months because this was supposed to be

a course correction for all the troubles and mistakes of the deterred administration. instead, this could be actually keeping the philippines besieged democracy over the cliff. criselda richard, there was just talking about this nostalgia factor, and a few moments ago you were talking in your answer about the fact that potential voters are, are associating and mr. marco's with this golden age. and i'm wondering how that came to be. i mean, you're talking about for now, marco's junior is the son of a dictator. his father was overthrown by a popular revolt. so how do we get to this stage right now where the limbs that people are, are, or it seems, many potential voters in the philippines are looking through to view mr. marco's is a lens of nostalgia. well, just simply by things, it's basically a lack of critical thinking, but also because a lot of things went wrong with the education system since the 1986 people bowery

bought the restore democracy. so you don't, you know, your textbooks, your school books didn't have anything or didn't have much about what we went on during the marshal era. and you compare that to mike was having, you know, had the best intellectuals of his time, write a book about his ideology, which the family still tried to carry on the carry over the years. so you have that . so you have the education system going down and you also have the population growing and you have a majority of the population who don't have access to good education. we don't have access to books and filipinos don't generally read books. i hate saying that because it's not entirely true, but you know, and in the sense that it's not the 1st thing that they would look for to find out about what really went wrong or what went wrong to the country and what happened during marshall. so it's easy for them to just believe in whatever is told them,

whatever they see on facebook, whatever they see on social media. and you know, if you have a big portion of the population, not having access to good education. and if you have education not improving as much as, as much as it should be, then what do you have to become a grant of what we went on and people who don't know their history doesn't have much of future? and that's where we are now. we don't know what our future will be. that's the problem. that's the biggest problem denila. i wanna take a step back for a moment and talk about the importance or perhaps we should say popularity of political dynasties in the philippines and examined that with you for a couple of minutes because the running mate for fernand marcos. junior, his run made a choice for vice president is sarah detector. that's one of the daughters of the current president rodrigo, to charity. so just how powerful are political dynasties in the philippines. and i

also want to ask you, if political parties have tended to be secondary to personalities there? ah, well right now, because all regions in the philippines would have, i will need to go dynasties there. so the i, you know, in the, in the philippines is that the border, the area, the strong there that will need to go diagnose these become actually even the fight in the system has been hijacked by that each and powerful most especially big business. and of course, that will be the del dynasty, so that might be the system has become a back door and an additional seat at the house of representatives for those with the same cern means some things. there's even anecdotal evidence where husband and wife would run into separate if this takes. that's just so they would get a strong, they're foothold and they're quite deacon are area where they old dominion. so political dynasty is very,

very powerful. and with regard to political part vcr clinic and seeing that it's mainly personality based and it's mainly defined by me by the fake. so ever it can finance up, i think in our political might be, you can expect that to be the one to norton over. i that might be, can i believe that the landscape? so that's why the ankle, this m is very normal in the philippines and like in other countries, swear, changing part. these would be a big standout here it's white noise. my leave of the running joke is unit 3 feet on in one room and after a few are sorry, so you'll have 5 will meet the gunfire at least out of 3 people now by the or will you think part the system is richard and you mentioned in your previous answer that from your vantage point, fernand marcos junior has a commanding lead. perhaps a lead that you know, nobody might be able to basically overcome going forward. um the current vice president, lenny robledo, she's a former human rights lawyer. she's been a harsh critic of president to tear tase so called war on drugs. she is the leader

of the opposition. i want to ask you 1st, what are her chances is is there any way that she could perhaps actually be a viable threat to mr. marcos and also how organized overall is the opposition in the philippines. well, in many ways, the string thought of conservative right wing oriented leaders, whether it's the territory market. this is also a function of the weakness of the opposition. i mean, the philippine opposition is notoriously divided. you move to the left or at least 3 different functions. there us for us, the center lead or liberal democrats like your linear bread, very concerned. there was an effort to create the common united front united opposition that the, the time out, it was supposed to be something of a combination of linear bread or after money buck y'all and the school moreno. guess what all of them are now running against each other. now if you look at the other side, actually bobo marcos was only number 3. he was only calling

a 13 percent 6 months ago 2 quarters ago. now he's at 53 percent off. the more authoritative service and the large part of that is because started that they did decide that decided the team rather than to go against the so as this united that the opposition has been the other side has been relatively more united. but let me also push back a little bit against, i mean, i agree with criselda that critical thinking and basic basic education is important . but let's not forget the basic data. if you look at the solid base, the in the left, the support base both for 2 thirds and marcos, it's actually in the most develop parts of the country. it's a national capital region. it's a northern provinces of the philippines which are more developed. and if you look at the demographic base, it's among abc middle class where to tear at the end markets actually have the highest numbers of support. and that has a lot to do with a lot of disenchanted middle class filipinos who joined at the wonder lucian to join to revolution. and they didn't see the fundamental changes in the country. the proliferation of political dynasty dominating up to 90 percent of legislature has

made a mockery out of the ideals of the $986.00 cerebral lusan. so you have an angry disenchanted section of the middle class really as a solid base of the marcos. and unfortunately, the rest of that is a lot of by winning a lot of fashion. and a lot of just people going are going with the latest fad as far as this election is concerned. so the middle class in the philippines has turned against democracy. and we have seen this trend in thailand in sheila, in turkey, in brazil, many other countries which are also experiencing their own counter revolution. criselda. i want to ask you if you think we're going to see president, do tara tay endorse a candidate or from those currently running a? previously he had chosen sen. christopher, go. but mr. go, i believe, withdrew from the race last year. i believe it was a november is present to charity, going to endorse somebody and you believe that that will be mr marco's. ah,

he's been. ringback saying things against the little mark list, i'm not really sure about him and again, but knowing that you never know what you do with the last minute everything about you've been on it. this is always at the last minute. i mean, yes, we see the surveys going up, but you never really know until like the last month or even the last 2 weeks. and that's what happened. you know, 6 years ago. there's just so much unpredictability in what's going on now and not just now, but even in the last few years. and it's all fed by a lot of confusion, a lot of trickery. a lot of this information and how to, you know, to, to, to get out of that if it's something difficult to do. so i really don't know what it would do. no. i think you might just wait and see as well at the last minute and, you know, knowing him, you just don't know. i mean, this whole thing has been like a political and i think that's the sad part about the country. it's, you know,

we've come to a point where every day we don't know anymore what might happen was we haven't yet reached a point where whoever wins the institution was the still keep working. we don't know anymore. we don't know what would happen to policies and institutions once somebody or fix our and it depends on who that person is. it's really danny doesn't earlier. it's really all about personalities. and that's going to be our, our bid for the biggest it ever denila. it looks very much like you want to jump in . so please go ahead. i agree with this. and when she says that everything so unpredictable, and in fact, i would even dare say that that's not how i may be right now when what you will be doing ends up being on whatever unfolds in the near future. he may be criticizing my quest now, but later on he might be sharing the same speech with him. i understand that right

now. yes, endorse. i feel similar. you can do that, so it won't be surprising. it can be endorsing another one. however, let me just jump into what happened. you might, you might need to adjust the best. how unpredictable things are. we weren't expecting them on me. so we shall in for the presidency. but i'd be before or a few days before the election. be something contrary grayshock, how did him and then our precedent for the around was the game, but eventually in there. so you see that kind of unpredictability, they think back at the make the make the pool. and if we want to go further back, actually that this information network by the wife process actually started not now or not recently, but in 1989 when they started coming back to the philippines after their exile in the united states. they'd like to run for local office somewhere in the northern

part of the i'm 30, they succeed that they best of the want there again for and for national office off i'd be going to be the same that it white again. you have, i mean, marcus, and bumble mark was becoming senate are in the right now. we're seeing longbow markers to be being back open for the words of their patients for what top and for the seats that they planted. the thing back, the richard and what will president do, terry his legacy b. how popular does he remain? that's 1st and foremost, how popular does he remain in the philippines and how difficult will it be for whomever is elected next to step out of that shadow? well, i mean, do, terry, is the embodiment of what you can call per formative populism. right? his numbers are really, really high. i mean, he's a plus 16 net approval rating. ah, this is unprecedented. we're look at numbers or no other, you been a prisoner achieved,

and yet it seems there's an inverse relationship with the 3rd as popular numbers and actual effectiveness of the president in dealing with some fundamental issues facing the country. including the pandemic, including the economic damage and recovery from that economic damage. the philippines is among the poorest performing countries in the region, and at some point was at the bottom of the rankings in south east asia and broad duration region. so it seems that the 2 are disconnected, and a lot of that is about the per for maternity of the administration. everyone talks about this information on demarcus. it's but the 3rd this are, you know, president there, this support is our experts in different, a lot of them now are, are switching to the mark with sites. so we're going to see perhaps more continuation of the present. now, what is legacy going to be? well, if you know he's through will tell someone within the past you, we can make all sorts of arguments about where he failed and where he not. obviously, if you're a critical that you care about human rights, you're going to be hard to fight by the number of extra judicial killings and he's

drug war. but if you are so part of that, you're going to look at how he dealt with some low hanging problems. for instance. passports in the philippines are easier to get. a lot of basic, you know, of office work is not easy or not infrastructure project started under that. that depends. it depends on what you care about more. clearly, we are in the unprecedented territory because in the past, the national capital region, manila tends to be anti incumbency, meaning they tend to go against the opposition. and yet, if you look at the number of linear bread on going back up to the previous question, really dancer directly, then your bread is doing really by the national capital region, the national capital region is voting more for bond markets by part. so this looks like a vote against the regime that replace markets and this is a volt that is favoring the whole, the 3rd, the mark was axis care. so the, you talked before about the unpredictability factor. and i want to ask you about something that's obviously going to have an impact in this campaign that would be covered 19. how much concern is there right now in the philippines about it and

from your vantage point, how might it impact, you know, the campaign and perhaps the election? yeah, you tell me about the pandemic, myron? yes. yes. oh, you know, when i think people who went through the 1st difficult, 1st difficult year of the pandemic, realize that they were on their own that government wasn't going to be there to help them. um, clearly that should have been like a negative factor for, for the government, but it wasn't and why that was so i'm not sure. but i think essentially people just got the hands of doing things on, on their own. because national government has never been there. and you can say that when it comes to natural disasters, which happens every year. and you know, there has been no clear policy on what should be done about climate change, renewable energy and stuff like that. people have become too

demanding accountability. so if you go to even the smallest province smallest villages and you see a government official who has a beautiful house compared to others, they don't. people don't ask why do you have that? where did you get the money wrong to then in their minds? maybe we should also try to do that, join governments, so we can also have enough money. values has some, have somehow been distorted and that has change. so with golden 19, i'm not even sure it may take that. all right, well we have run out of time, so we're going to have to leave the conversation there. thanks so much. all of our guest neil around for sale, the airbus and richard. hey darian and thank you for watching. you can see the program again. any time by visiting our website, al jazeera dot com and for further discussion, go to our facebook page. that's facebook dot com, forward slash ha, inside story. you can also join the conversation on twitter. our handle is at ha, inside story for me. how much room and whole team here i for now.

ah ah. the latest news as it breaks after the killing, you're still isolator is why the united states over the last 3 years? many at close the war, their fear will see that as a challenge with detailed coverage. opposition to the mine run strong signs against it, like this form are found across the community from the around the world. very hard to get a sense of public opinion inside me. i'm up with the military arresting people for

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here. when ever you ah, all the, with the watching all just there with me say robin and reminder of our top these stories, the eas, top financial regulators, preparing bangs for a possible russian cyber attack. that's according to the reuters news agency, which says bank that conducting cyber wargames. meanwhile, european leaders on a diplomatic push to prevent a military conflict. but we need crane and russia, which has be the massive troops on the ukrainian border french president. manuel macro is the latest leader to meet both the presidents of russia and ukraine. natasha butler.