Internet personality Norman Mangusin, who identifies as Francis Leo Marcos, was among the senatorial aspirants disqualified from running in the 2025 midterm elections.
The Commission on Elections on Friday, November 29, released a list of nuisance candidates who filed for a Certificate of Candidacy (COC) last October for the upcoming polls.
The list contains 18 individuals whose motions for reconsideration were junked by the poll body after their names were not included in the partial list of qualified senatorial bets before.
These included Mangusin, an internet personality who calls himself Francis Leo Marcos, claiming his mother said it was his “real name.”
Mangusin was among those who filed a COC as a senatorial aspirant in the 2025 elections, marking his third attempt after filing in the 2013 and 2022 elections.
His candidacy was rejected in the 2013 polls due to age requirements.
But Comelec allowed him to run in the 2022 polls, reportedly landing on the 27th spot and short of the 12 seats for the elections at that time.
In 2024, Mangusin once again attempted to run for senator, letting his representatives file his COC.
He was later declared a nuisance candidate by the Comelec this month.
A nuisance candidate, according to the Omnibus Election Code, is someone who has filed “to put the election process in mockery or disrepute or to cause confusion among the voters by the similarity of the names of the registered candidates.”
They will also be declared as such if there are “other circumstances or acts which clearly demonstrate that the candidate has no bona fide intention to run for the office for which the certificate of candidacy has been filed and thus prevent a faithful determination of the true will of the electorate.”
Who is Francis Leo Marcos?
Mangusin, who identifies as Francis Leo Marcos, claimed that his mother told him Marcos was his real name when she saw him struggling in life.
He also claimed his mother told a relative that he was the relative’s “nephew,” although Mangusin did not disclose the identity of the supposed relative in an interview.
The Marcos family, however, had denied Mangusin’s connections to them, saying that he was “unrelated in any way” to the political clan.
“Moreover, he does not represent the interests of the Marcos family,” lawyer Vic Rodriguez, former spokesperson of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. before he took office, said before.
Mangusin became known for perpetuating the “Mayaman Challenge,” in which he previously urged wealthy people to help the impoverished during the enhanced community quarantine imposed amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, he was arrested for violating the revised Optometry Law of 1985 for reportedly distributing unauthorized eyeglasses in Baguio City.
