Have the Dutertes turned the tide?
They say that I was a terrible president of Cuba. That may be true. But I was the best president Cuba ever had,” remarked the exiled Cuban leader Carlos Manuel Prío Socarrás. In many ways, a similar narrative has undergirded the so-called “Duterte magic.” Time and again, former president Rodrigo Duterte has admitted to shortcomings, but just to claim that, at the very least, he did something about national crises no matter how incompetent or catastrophic.
Whenever confronted with evidence of misdeed or misgovernance, Duterte supporters are quick to lean back their usual retort: “At least, he did something about drugs and criminality!” This ”cult of action,” the Italian philosopher Umberto Eco once argued, is central to both the ideology and appeal of authoritarian populist leaders.
Drenched in the awesome power of the state, and crowned with a decisive electoral mandate and sky-high approval ratings, Duterte seamlessly inspired admiration and fear among the majority of Filipinos throughout his six years in Malacañang. But the past two years have seen a steady diminution of the notorious dynasty’s political capital, even as the Dutertes held onto the country’s largest urban center in terms of land area as well as the second most powerful office in the land. The reason was simple: They overreached by directly attacking their chief ally, the Marcoses, who have shown little interest in squandering their second shot at Malacañang.
Blinded by hubris, the Dutertes thought that they could just bludgeon President Marcos into submission and, accordingly, become the ”power behind the throne.” That foolhardy plan, however, has catastrophically backfired. The upshot was the concatenation of multiple forces, which threatened the very political survival of the Dutertes: A dramatic series of exposes of the Dutertes’ multifarious wrongdoings went hand in hand with the real and present threat of impeachment against the Vice President.
By the end of 2024, the once mighty dynasty was a cornered beast. And then, all of a sudden, the tide shifted in favor of the Dutertes. On one hand, it always helps to have a well-organized religious group behind you to muster a million-strong ”peace rally” to intimidate your opponents. More importantly, however, the Marcos administration seemingly failed to appreciate the perils of not reining in the greed of their legislative allies ahead of the midterm elections. And here enters the significance of the split within the genuine opposition.
In theory, the disintegration of the “UniTeam” should have provided an unprecedented opening for a progressive ”third force.” But lacking a core leadership and characteristically fractious and ideologically incoherent, genuine opposition forces failed to congeal into an autonomous force. If anything, the administration chose to piggy-ride on the “Never Duterte” camp, which took up the cudgels to expose the notorious dynasty, while the Dutertes wasted no time to piggy-ride on the “Never Marcos” camp, which assiduously exposed alleged anomalies in the 2025 national budget.
The result is the fracturing of the national political discourse and, accordingly, a decisive halt to the anti-Duterte momentum steadily building up over the past year. And since the commander in chief happens to be a conflict-avoidant individual, there is effectively no center of gravity in Philippine politics. Thus, it’s impossible to predict the outcome of the inter-dynastic conflict, which is steadily tearing the country asunder.
In this sense, the Philippines more exhibits Niccolo Machiavelli’s ”cyclical” conception of history in medieval societies than the characteristics of a modern democratic republic. When institutions are weak, and the rule of law is purely aspirational, political development gives way to indeterminate cycles of intra-oligarchic struggles, institutional decay, and, worse, a political vacuum.
While undoubtedly entertaining, our Netflix-like politics is actually extremely dangerous, since it could ultimately produce a total crisis of legitimacy with dire consequences. On one hand, more Filipinos could end up cynical and, accordingly, opt out of political mobilization altogether, thus dramatically diminishing chances of positive transformation for the foreseeable future. Worse, the emerging interregnum could strengthen the hands of more extreme forces, including proto-fascist advocates of a ”revolutionary government.”
Unless the genuine opposition crystalizes into a coherent force, one that is capable of providing an alternative bastion of hope and leadership, the Philippines’ political fate will remain hostage to Mr. Marcos’ whims and the political death drive of the Dutertes.
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rheydarian@inquirer.com.ph
