About half of some 87,000 registered Filipino voters in the city will begin casting their votes on April 13 for a month, closing on May 13 at 4pm at the Bayanihan centre in Kennedy Town. It could be the bellwether for an Otso Diretso win or a pro-Digong victory.

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Otso Diretso (The Honest Eight), led by Manuel “Mar” Roxas, the defeated 2016 presidential candidate, is confident the city’s expat voters will propel them to the Senate.

On April 7, some Digong team candidates called Hugpong ng Pagbabago (Faction for Change), will address a rally in Central, followed by a song-and-dance performance by former communications chief Mocha Uson.

It is not known whether Davao city mayor Sara Duterte, who founded the HNP to support her father, would show up at the event after her recent controversial remarks that honesty does not matter in candidates when Imee Marcos, daughter of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, was caught lying about graduating from the University of the Philippines law school.

The pro-Duterte rally comes weeks after Otso Diretso went on a charm offensive promising honesty, integrity, and vowing to fight for the future by enacting laws that benefit the masses.

The alliance is a partnership with the Liberal Party led by incumbent senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, the popular lawyer-husband of megastar Sharon Cuneta.

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It has become more social media-savvy and has a moniker: MATH GRAD, which stands for the first letter of their surnames.

It comprises rights lawyer Romulo “Romy” Macalintal; former congressman Gary Alejano, who spent seven years in jail for involvement in a military uprising; former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada; former solicitor general and constitutional law professor Florin “Pilo” Hilbay; Marawi-born ex-member of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission Samira Gutoc; former secretary of the interior and local government Roxas; Senator Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV; and human rights lawyer Jose Manuel “Chel” Diokno.

“One issue that differentiates us from the previous campaign [in 2016] is the issue of justice,” Diokno said. “We have a big problem in the politics of justice but also corruption because of problems of judicial accountability and transparency.”

Tañada said: “If the president is really interested in helping solve the problems of our overseas foreign workers here, he can use his ‘special relationship’ with China to ensure the rights of the workers.”

The eight were hand-picked by the opposition’s de facto leader, vice-president Leni Robredo.

“I am the number one campaigner of Otso Diretso because I believe in them. I believe that they will bring a lot of goodness. I believe they will fight for what is right and just,” Robredo declared.

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Earlier, Robredo was mobbed by fans when she attended the campaign rally for her team outside the Court of Final Appeal in Central.

She batted for the absent Alejano, Aquinoand Roxas, the best friend of her late husband Jesse, a former secretary of the interior and local government who died in a light aircraft crash in 2012.

“Secretary Mar went to Masbate immediately to join the search for the crashed aircraft,” she said.

Roxas did not leave the site until the plane was found three days later and was the first to tell her “Sorry, Jesse’s gone”.

Roxas could not come to Hong Kong as he was on “daddy duties” for baby twins Pepe and Pilar with journalist-wife Korina Sanchez.

Professor Lucia Palpalatoc-Tangi, chairwoman of the UP Diliman Department of Journalism, said Otso Diretso has a hard climb because “many [voters] would still say they prefer Duterte because of his ‘pro-masa’ style”.