THE first time a candidate of note has withdrawn from a presidential race was 23 years ago. Thirteen days before election day, on April 29, 1998, former first lady Imelda Marcos, the widow of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, withdrew from the May 11, 1998 presidential contest with the contrived reason to 'save the Filipino people from the ultimate injustice of a possible bloody election.'

She did not explain how her withdrawal would save the country from electoral violence or why her continued candidacy could spark a bloody election. She was then far behind in the surveys and had appealed her conviction for graft.