* Duterte to boost mandate, control crucial Senate
* Senate traditionally a check on state power
* Opposition takes big hit, vows to keep up fight
* Duterte brand seen as crucial vote-winner
By Martin Petty
MANILA, May 14 (Reuters) - Allies of Philippine President
Rodrigo Duterte have dominated a mid-term Senate election
according to unofficial results on Tuesday, indicating growing
support for the maverick leader and broad public endorsement of
his controversial rule.
Nine of 12 Senate seats available look set to go to
pro-Duterte candidates and the rest to independents, unofficial
results showed, with the opposition that campaigned strongly
against his presidency failing to make the cut.
Monday's ballot for more than 18,000 posts, among them
hundreds of mayors, governors, and Congressmen, was billed as a
referendum on the firebrand president, with special focus on his
bid to consolidate power in the all-important upper house.
A Senate majority would be a boon for Duterte, lessening the
chance of censures and house probes against his government and
making it easier to co-opt independents and sideline opponents
to push through bills vital to his ambitious reform agenda.
"This president's popularity and transferability of his
popularity is unprecedented to say the least, despite all the
controversies," said political analyst Edmund Tayao.
"You expect normally two or three candidates from the
opposition to win but this is a wipe-out."
Candidates leading the Senate race include the president's
closest aide, the daughter of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos,
the wife of the country's richest man, a jailed politician
recently cleared of plunder, and a police general who led a war
on drugs that killed thousands in its first few months.
OPPOSITION DECIMATED
They would join 12 Senate incumbents of which only four are
from the opposition, including the biggest critic of Duterte's
war on drugs, Leila de Lima, who has been in detention since
2017 on narcotics charges.
The mid-term results leave the political opposition in
tatters and changes the dynamic of a Senate that has
traditionally been a vital check on state power and a bulwark
against the kind of political dominance that Duterte is
demonstrating. Duterte is expected to retain control in the
lower house also.
The opposition vowed not to give in.
"We acted not for the certainty of victory but the certainty
of our beliefs and conviction," said incumbent Senator Francis
Pangilinan. "Our fight for justice, for sovereignty and a more
progressive future for our people continues."
The mid-terms came at a time when Duterte, 74, is seemingly
untouchable, with last year's spiralling inflation now under
control and a recent poll showing his public approval rating at
a staggering 81 percent.
Duterte's down-to-earth appeal and his diehard social media
support base has so far insulated him from domestic
repercussions for his misogynistic remarks, jokes about rape,
tirades against the Catholic church, an embrace of rival China,
and a crackdown on drugs that killed thousands of users and
small-timer peddlers in slum communities, many execution-style.
Experts say the administration's winning formula was
focusing less on policy and more on Duterte's personality,
including using daughter Sara Duterte as a potent surrogate, in
a possible succession play for the 2022 presidential election.
"That was a wise move on the part of father and daughter,
they were willing to use their brand," said political strategist
Malou Tiquia.