Sara Duterte trial: Is it too late?
Never since the heydays of Manny Pacquiao’s iconic fights in Las Vegas and Carlos Yulo’s surreal Olympic double-gold more recently, have we seen such an upsurge of national pride. Arguably, what Alex Eala achieved in Wimbledon over the weekend was something even greater. She not only pushed the boundaries of tennis and showed how Filipinos are world-class, she also proved how the Filipino can dominate even the poshest and most prestigious endeavors on the global stage.
Her remarkable performance, plastered all over global headlines, coincided with the news that the Philippines is now officially an “upper-middle-income” economy based on the World Bank (WB) classification system. This puts the country in the same category as other major emerging economies such as Türkiye, Thailand, Malaysia, Brazil, China, Argentina, Indonesia, and Vietnam. We clearly have a long runway until attaining the “high income” classification, which would require us to more than double our current per capita income levels, but long gone are the days when we could describe the Philippines as a “poor country.”
But, dear reader, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Here’s the rub: no amount of celebrity, sporting success, or favorable WB coverage could compensate for the utter disaster that is our domestic politics. And it’s Dutertismo—the cult-like, quasi-fascist ideology represented by the most vicious dynasty in Philippine history—that is the ultimate culprit in our current political unbecoming.
The conventional wisdom on Vice President Sara Duterte’s trial, which began this week, runs in two different but not necessarily mutually exclusive directions: there are not enough senators willing to hold her accountable and the trial will be politically damaging and an electoral game-changer ahead of the 2028 presidential race. Both assumptions seem sound, but are equally questionable. The first assumes that the law of self-preservation won’t turn even the most craven legislators against the Dutertes. The second assumes that facts can change political dynamics.
Given the current Senate leadership under Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, I think it would be unfair to categorically rule out the possibility that the trial will turn out as robust enough to place noncommittal senators—with the exception of a few Duterte factotums—in a bind should the gravity of evidence point in the direction of conviction. But after repeatedly witnessing how our upper house is utterly capable of descending to the lowest of lows, it would be reckless to count on this scenario.
Meanwhile, we should also be highly skeptical of any argument that suggests voters will automatically change their minds in droves should they get exposed to the truth. Really? I have lost count of thousands of authoritative reports showing the utter moral bankruptcy and sheer incompetence of the Duterte dynasty. How many hearings in Congress exposed VP Sara’s shambolic tenure at the Department of Education? How many times did we hear about “Mary Grace Piattos,” “Jay Kamote,” “Miggy Mango,” and countless other aliases that clearly show anomalous practices by the Vice President? How many times should she reiterate threats against President Marcos and other top officials? How many times should we hear her deafening silence on China’s bullying of Philippine fishermen and Coast Guard vessels in the West Philippine Sea? And how many more warrants of arrest should the International Criminal Court issue before we realize the horror of extrajudicial killings under Dutertismo?
All surveys suggest that VP Sara could potentially garner up to 60 percent of votes in some head-to-head races, with around a third of total voters still comfortable with choosing her in a multicandidate race. So, what other facts and how many exposes are folks waiting for before realizing the Duterte dynasty should not be allowed anywhere close to any position of power? That they lack competence to even run a barangay!
As an excellent new study, “The Contemporary Filipino Voter,” by political scientists Dean Dulay and Cleve Arguelles shows, what we’re witnessing is the emergence of regionalism—rather than ideology or even class—as the ultimate political cleavage in Philippine politics. The so-called “Solid South” will most likely stick with the Dutertes until the end of times. I know this because I saw how over decades, no amount of facts changed the minds of countless fellow Ilocanos about the Marcoses.
The real question, therefore, is: Should we soon contemplate drastic measures to save our most-fragile democracy from a potentially impending collapse?
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richard.heydarian@inquirer.net
