MANILA — Presidential aspirant Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. and his running mate Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio "have a good chance to win" in the May elections, former First Lady Imelda Marcos said in a video message on Tuesday as the campaign period for national position candidates kicked off.

"From what I feel from the people I have been talking to, we have a good chance to win," the 92-year-old Imelda said in the video posted on her daughter Sen. Imee's Facebook page.

Imelda said she is unable to attend the proclamation rally of her son, who is a namesake of her late husband, in Bulacan because of a "bad fall" she suffered last year.

"I will do my best to campaign not only for Bongbong and Sara [Duterte Carpio] but for everybody, all the candidates of the group," she said.

Imelda has been open about her wish for Bongbong to seek the presidency to follow in the footsteps of his father.

• Imelda looks forward to another Marcos as president
• Imelda wants Bongbong to run for president in 2016

"Bongbong is well-educated and he is prepared. And his record in Ilocos is very good. He has been a good executive," she said in a Kyodo News interview in early 2013.

"I'd be privileged and happy, not only because I'm the mother, but because he was molded, even as a child, in an atmosphere of service to people. He knows exactly an idea of what leadership is," the former beauty queen, who wielded immense power during her late husband's dictatorship, said then.

The younger Marcos was only 8 years old when his father became the Philippines' 10th president on Dec. 30, 1965. Ferdinand Sr. imposed martial law from 1972, and was deposed in 1986 through the People Power Revolution.

Bongbong lost the vice presidential race in 2016.

Voter surveys showed he is the favorite to succeed President Rodrigo Duterte, father of Sara. Until last Monday, the incumbent chief executive still has no bet from among the 10 presidential aspirants in this May's elections. In November last year, Duterte called Bongbong a weak leader.

• Duterte says daughter Sara's running-mate Marcos is 'spoiled, weak leader'

Some groups have petitioned the Commission on Elections to disqualify Bongbong from this year's elections over his 1995 tax evasion conviction. The poll body has yet to issue its decision.

- with report from Kyodo News