Millions of Filipinos began voting in Monday's midterm election, widely regarded as a referendum on an explosive dispute between President Ferdinand Marcos and impeachment vice president Sara Duterte.

Workers in the capital Manila were busy setting up polling stations on Sunday to participate in a competition that would determine more than 18,000 positions, from seats in the House to a competitive municipal office.

However, the Senate campaign has had a significant impact on the 2028 presidential election.

The 12 senators elected Monday will form a half-jury at the Duterte impeachment trial, which is tentatively scheduled for July, which could leave her permanent ban on public office. Duterte said her name in a speech at a rally last week, and her family’s name was “dragged into the mud.” "Who would have really benefited if the Duterte family came from this world? Not Filipinos, not victims of crime, unemployed, poor, and even hunger."

Duterte's long-term photography with former ally Ally Marcos exploded in February when she was impeached by the House of Representatives for alleged "high crimes", including corruption and assassination plots against the president. She denied the allegations, adding that she used the assassination plot as a hypothetical situation.

Just a month later, her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested the same day and taken to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face human crime charges in his deadly anti-drug campaign.

Sara Duterte will need to hold nine votes in the 24-seat Senate to preserve hope for a future presidential election.

Entering Monday, seven candidates who performed in the top 12 were recognized by Marcos, while four candidates were consistent with his vice president.

On Saturday, the duo, including presidential independence sister Imee Marcos, was “adopted” as honorary members of the Duterte family’s PDP-Laban party.

Under the resolution, the move to add Imee Marcos and television character Camille Villar to the party's slate is intended to add "more allies to protect the vice president from impropriety".

At its last rally in Manila on Thursday, Duterte invoked the ghost of “massive” election fraud and once again transferred her father to the International Criminal Court’s “kidnapping.”

Despite his detention in The Hague, Elder Duterte is still on the ballot in the city of Davao, the southern stronghold of his family, where he tries to regain his former mayoral job.

At least one local poll predicts that he will win comfortably.

The National Police of the Archipelago Country has been on alert for more than a week and has deployed about 163,000 police officers to secure polling stations, escorting election officials and guard checkpoints.

In a country, thousands of people from military departments, fire departments and other agencies are mobilized to maintain peace.

City Council will have hope, a pollster and a village chief who is at least 16 people said police said they were killed in the attack during the advancement of Monday's election.

The city councillor candidate on Saturday was one of two men among the "armed groups" killed in police and military police and military in the autonomous Muslim area of ​​southern Mindanao, a notorious breeding ground for election-related violence.

Further north, a group of men were arrested at Cebu Airport while transporting 441 million pesos (nearly $8 million) in cash, a crime committed under election rules designed to prevent bribery and exchange votes.

Both cases are still under investigation.