With her precarious ranking in pre-election surveys on senatorial preferences for Monday's balloting, the Villars are pulling every trick in the book for Camille to make it to the top 12.

AI-manipulated videos and audio have emerged as a growing disinformation tactic ahead of Monday’s midterm elections—more frequent, more targeted and more deceptive. Despite their rise, simpler manipulations, or shallowfakes, remain the more widespread threat, continuing to dominate the misinformation landscape flagged by fact-checkers.

The Makabayan bloc has a different goal than traditional politicians: build a “people’s opposition” which will go beyond the May 12 elections. Garnering support for key issues they advocate is the impact they want to make.

How much is the going rate?An incumbent candidate for Congress has doubled the cash given by his opponent to ensure victory from P500 to P1,000 per vote, many recipients attest. For some, “the vote is given to the highest bidder,” says one, who refused to be named.