Months after the National and Local Elections (NLE) 2025, electoral experts and analysts dissected the results and examined the role of the youth in the changing tides of the country’s political landscape in VoteReal: A Post-Elections Reality Check. The roundtable discussion was organized by the University Student Government’s Office of the Vice President for External Affairs (USG OVPEA) in collaboration with DLSU’s Center for Social Concern and Action (COSCA) and Committee on National Issues and Concerns (CONIC) last June 28 at the sixth floor of the Learning Commons.
Changing winds in the PH political landscape
DLSU Department of International Studies Full Professor and research fellow Dr. Julio Teehankee described the recent elections as a “year of tectonic shifts,” citing the surge of votes that led to the surprising finish of Kiko Pangilinan and Bam Aquino that defied the predictions of pre-election surveys.
“The party-list system…was originally meant for the marginalized sector. But, in recent years, it has been captured by political dynasties, celebrities, and even contractors,” Teehankee pointed out, bringing to light how the government remains controlled by reemerging politicians and their clans.
In a twist of fate, however, even though surveys pointed toward the party-lists of Anti-Crime and Terrorism Community Involvement and Support Inc. (ACT-CIS) and Duterte Youth as top contenders, Akbayan surpassed both, signaling an impressive pushback against the country’s current party-list culture.
Teehankee also detailed the resurgence of the “pink-yellow movement,” a campaign forcibly written off as a “spent horse” after NLE 2022. He referred to a political map from Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Philippines that reported 28 percent of former presidential candidate Leni Robredo’s voters had increased by 37 percent in the 2025 elections, based on the performance of Robredo’s endorsed Senate candidates.
Similarly, Dr. Francis Magno, director of the Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance, described how the recent elections showed both “continuity and change,” illustrating the results as preservation of systems in place on one hand and the beginning of a significant shift on the other.
“We don’t expect ‘yung parang eruption of change, ‘yung pagputok ng bulkan.” Magno said, implying how change occurs “incrementally.” Thus, while these victories are notable, they are insufficient to transform the country’s political landscape overnight.
(…like the eruption of a volcano.)
Nevertheless, Magno posited that the results are a reflection that “there is hope in certain spaces,” as the elections had the highest turnout for midterm polls in Philippine history. He attributed this to youth mobilization, noting the attraction of first-time voters to “reformist narratives.”
In USG’s Boto Lasalyano 2025, a slate of progressive and opposition candidates filled all 12 positions with the Pangilinan-Aquino tandem on top. While the midterm elections displayed different results from collegiate mock surveys, these polls indicate the youth’s “propensity to be reform-oriented,” as Magno outlined.
The youth’s role beyond voting
Contrary to Teehankee and Magno, Atty. Carlo Africa, executive director of Hiraya, a nongovernmental organization advocating for national civic engagement, argued that there was “no such thing as a youth vote,” stressing that the country is operating under a “vulnerable and flawed democracy,” and therefore needs a better solution than simply voting wisely.
A portion of these issues stems from the prevalence of political dynasties that pervade every election. “Even if we have the smartest voters in the world, walang kuwenta because pare-pareho lang ang pangalan sa balota,” Africa contended.
(…there’s no sense because the names on the ballots are always the same.)
To this, Africa offered a different perspective: redefining Philippine politics as something youth-led, movement-based—one that challenges existing political powers. “I’m not interested in a youth vote…I’m interested in young people representing all of us in elections…because young people all over the world, historically, kayo ang nagsisimula ng pagbabago.”
(…you begin the change.)
In a succeeding segment, the speakers, along with USG Vice President for External Affairs Xymoun Rivera, further deconstructed the structural shifts that progressed during the elections.
Through the back-and-forth with audience members, each panelist asserted how the results vaguely demonstrate the direction of the country’s political landscape in the coming years, which meant a multitude of possibilities. This could affect recent issues, such as Vice President Sara Duterte’s ongoing impeachment case, or even influence the next round of elections in 2028.
Ultimately, the panel believed in the pivotal role of the youth beyond the elections, urging Lasallians to become active participants of democracy by recognizing their role as leaders to contribute to national transformation and influence grassroots politics.
“We should not only emphasize the youth as voters but the youth as doers,” Teehankee remarked.
