Beyond Trump and Duterte
The Democrats’ victory in both houses of the American Congress in the Nov. 3 midterm elections has vicariously gratified many Filipinos sickened by United States President Donald Trump’s executive style and policies. But before celebrating a political reversal, we should ask a more difficult question: what became of the discontents that first brought Trump to power?
Trump won in 2016, lost in 2020, and returned in 2024. His second election was not simply an exercise in nostalgia. Many Americans remained troubled by living costs, immigration, cultural displacement, unequal opportunities, and institutions they considered indifferent to their concerns. These grievances varied enormously; his voters were never one homogeneous bloc.
Now congressional voters have responded to different disappointments. Recent surveys identified inflation, corruption, democracy, and the Iran war among their concerns. The verdict promises stronger congressional checks on the presidency. It does not mean that the grievances underlying Trump’s earlier appeal have disappeared—or that Democrats have convincing, practical answers to all of them.
This distinction matters profoundly in the Philippines. Rodrigo Duterte won the presidency in 2016 with 39 percent of the vote. His campaign connected with citizens demanding public safety, decisive action, attention beyond Manila, and relief from familiar political arrangements. Some admired his combative language; others expected practical results. Treating every supporter as authoritarian, or every critic as an elitist, obscures the real diversity of experience behind political choices.
The underlying condition is political alienation: not merely dissatisfaction with politicians, but a sustained sense that the government does not understand one’s predicament, that established channels cannot correct injustice, and that one’s voice counts only when an election approaches.
Its sources are economic, geographic, cultural, and institutional. The underpaid worker, indebted farmer, stranded commuter, flood-prone household, and young graduate unable to find meaningful work may encounter very different hardships. Yet they may reach the same conclusion: public institutions do not reliably work for people like them.
Consider a revealing paradox. Former President Benigno Aquino III left office in 2016 with a positive net satisfaction rating, following advances in economic management and consequential reforms. Yet his administration’s preferred successor lost decisively. Good government performance, as measured nationally, does not necessarily translate into durable local trust, social inclusion, or an inherited political mandate.
The historical pattern reaches further back. The Marcos dictatorship promised discipline and national transformation while concentrating power and curtailing freedoms. The 1986 People Power Revolution recovered constitutional democracy, political liberties, and the possibility of peaceful succession. These events were morally and institutionally different; they cannot be collapsed into equivalent episodes of political disruption.
But neither experience fully repaired the unequal distribution of land, opportunity, protection, and political influence. The political order changed more visibly than many everyday relationships between citizens and power.
This is no argument against elections or democracy. It is an argument for asking more of both. With the 2028 presidential election approaching, political conversation is again dominated by personalities, alliances, surveys, and imagined matchups. Where are the comparable national conversations about the roots of alienation? Where are the competing, carefully examined programs for reducing regional exclusion, ecological insecurity, patronage, and the recurrent failure of public services?
A September 2026 Pulse Asia survey found 71 percent of Filipino adults naming inflation as an urgent national concern, followed by corruption and wages. These are not detachable campaign slogans. They are daily pressures against which promises must be tested.
The real danger is not that Filipinos will necessarily choose another Duterte-like figure. The danger is that another election may rearrange political leadership without producing the shared knowledge, organized constituencies, and institutional commitments needed for deeper change.
We need a process before, during, and beyond electoral campaigns: an independent civic forge where citizens examine their grievances, challenge competing explanations, and test alternative futures. Students, researchers, civic groups, and people’s organizations could initiate it; universities could make room for rigorous, genuinely nonpartisan debate without directing the outcomes.
Its purpose would not be to manufacture consensus or endorse candidates. It would make disagreement informed, political programs intelligible, and commitments open to continuing scrutiny. Political parties would still compete; citizens would be better equipped to examine what they offer.
That is the challenge of relay governance: preserving public learning and accountability across administrations rather than starting from zero with each new president.
America has demonstrated that voters can reverse an earlier electoral verdict. The Philippine task is more demanding: to build the civic and political capacity that makes a change in leadership capable of producing lasting changes in people’s lives.
—————-
