Leni Robredo’s presidential campaign offered supporters spaces that reflected their hopes by highlighting gender and sexuality issues

30 Apr 2025

This paper examines how Leni Robredo’s presidential campaign during the 2022 Philippines elections used language and visuals to create a space that demonstrated a vision of a better future. Spanning from October 2021 to May 2022, the study analyzed various signs used by her supporters. In their signs, Robredo supporters creatively used slogans, pop culture references, and visual elements to highlight issues of gender and sexuality while endorsing her campaign.

This strategy allowed supporters to express their identities and aspirations beyond traditional political messages and foster a shared identity rooted in progressive values. Through this, they linked their stances towards gender and sexuality with Robredo’s promise of good governance. This connection helped create what the paper calls “prefigurative genderscapes”—spaces that represent new and alternative ways of thinking about gender and sexuality. These spaces embodied the supporters’ hopes for a future where progressive values are realized in the present.

The concept of prefigurative politics and the ways these are spatialized within the context of Leni Robredo’s campaign highlights how supporters actively create alternative social environments that reflect their aspirations for a more inclusive and equitable society by foregrounding notions of gender and sexuality. The paper highlights the utility of prefigurative politics as a way of understanding contemporary socio-political activities that respond to increasing precarity and upheavals. By focusing on how gender and sexuality are represented in campaign materials, the paper sheds light on the importance of these ideas are productive entry points in understanding political discourse. It illustrates how supporters used language and visual elements to advocate for gender equality and challenge patriarchal norms, and the ways in which these notions are made to align with stances against dominant ways of conducting politics in the Philippines.

The paper calls for further exploration of prefigurative politics in linguistic landscape studies, suggesting that examining how alternative spaces are created can provide insights into broader social transformations. This opens up new avenues for research in the fields of sociolinguistics and gender studies.

Author: Christian Go (Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ll.24006.go?fbclid=IwY2xjawEgNvZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfSDsaQEh5u6SKbT4rhFYiYJkID_3-CaPW9NHCriY7AKzz3qmzUny45jkQ_aem_91Jzb37LkIeWrQYj2qwCcA

Leni Robredo’s presidential campaign offered supporters spaces that reflected their hopes by highlighting gender and sexuality issues

This paper examines how Leni Robredo’s presidential campaign during the 2022 Philippines elections used language and visuals to create a space that demonstrated a vision of a better future. Spanning from October 2021 to May 2022, the study analyzed various signs used by her supporters. In their signs, Robredo supporters creatively used slogans, pop culture references, and visual elements to highlight issues of gender and sexuality while endorsing her campaign.

This strategy allowed supporters to express their identities and aspirations beyond traditional political messages and foster a shared identity rooted in progressive values. Through this, they linked their stances towards gender and sexuality with Robredo’s promise of good governance. This connection helped create what the paper calls “prefigurative genderscapes”—spaces that represent new and alternative ways of thinking about gender and sexuality. These spaces embodied the supporters’ hopes for a future where progressive values are realized in the present.

The concept of prefigurative politics and the ways these are spatialized within the context of Leni Robredo’s campaign highlights how supporters actively create alternative social environments that reflect their aspirations for a more inclusive and equitable society by foregrounding notions of gender and sexuality. The paper highlights the utility of prefigurative politics as a way of understanding contemporary socio-political activities that respond to increasing precarity and upheavals. By focusing on how gender and sexuality are represented in campaign materials, the paper sheds light on the importance of these ideas are productive entry points in understanding political discourse. It illustrates how supporters used language and visual elements to advocate for gender equality and challenge patriarchal norms, and the ways in which these notions are made to align with stances against dominant ways of conducting politics in the Philippines.

The paper calls for further exploration of prefigurative politics in linguistic landscape studies, suggesting that examining how alternative spaces are created can provide insights into broader social transformations. This opens up new avenues for research in the fields of sociolinguistics and gender studies.

Author: Christian Go (Department of English and Comparative Literature, University of the Philippines Diliman)

Read the full paper: https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ll.24006.go?fbclid=IwY2xjawEgNvZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHfSDsaQEh5u6SKbT4rhFYiYJkID_3-CaPW9NHCriY7AKzz3qmzUny45jkQ_aem_91Jzb37LkIeWrQYj2qwCcA