The last hurrah

There are no secrets (not for very long, anyway) in the Philippines. So much so that speculation was rife that former president Rodrigo Duterte’s trip to Hong Kong was a prelude to seeking asylum in China to avoid being apprehended by Philippine authorities upon the request of International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol). A curious plan, if that was the case, considering China has made numerous use of Interpol’s red notices to enable the arrest of Chinese citizens in other jurisdictions. Not to mention that in November 2024, during the 92nd General Assembly of Interpol held in Glasgow, among those elected to a three-year term was the Delegate for Asia, Yong Wang of China. As part of its projection as a country devoted to the international rules-based order in contrast to America, it wouldn’t have done for China to foil an Interpol warrant.

In the end, Duterte decided not to flee or publicly seek asylum. It would have dissolved his political persona. Returning home and defiance behind bars allows what remains of his political infrastructure to be deployed, and more to the point, a chance to try to sway the public.

In the battle for public opinion, two contending characterizations of public opinion are at play. The first believes that Filipinos are always for the underdog. The second believes that Filipinos worship power, and, by extension, despise the defeated. Corollary to this is that we consider rooting for the underdog as actually a sly cheering on of those who show that the powerful are really powerless. More to the point: can someone contemptuous of the weak become a suitable martyr once he faces his comeuppance? That’s what is at play in the coming days.

Now it’s a question of extradition ahead of mobilization. The handicap of the Duterte network is that its core identity is anti-people power, and so, anti-mobilization. The job of the faithful, after all, is to cheer as the strongman strong-arms the weak, while those who can summon mass turnout, whether Apollo Quiboloy or the Iglesia ni Cristo, have themselves been neutralized. Even the Great Eagle Father’s lieutenants are now forced to contemplate that they themselves are liable for future arrest.

One observer tweeted: “The next chess move is for the daughter (the older one) to speak out and test her might.” But to this one might respond, you can only test your clout once and if you fail, what will that mean for your own trial? So it was the Vice President who basked in the adulation of the crowds in Hong Kong but neither accompanied her father home nor made any statement once he was arrested.

And so, the Great Eagle Father came home, possibly for the last time. He was arrested with a degree of dignity, not to mention surgical precision and efficiency, I’d previously thought impossible to achieve in our shambolic republic. Anticipating his arrival, there was an undercurrent of expectation (or was it fear?) that Duterte’s return would transform him into the underdog and unleash protests. I was puzzled by this since his power and influence have always been based on the charisma of intimidation; of challenging his foes to go after him, knowing they won’t dare. Which only works so long as your opponents are held at bay. To be sure, his apprehension might provoke public opinion, but would it galvanize protest? After all, his rise to national power was accompanied by his being framed as an anti-protest, anti-people power leader. You cannot summon what you took pride in abolishing, or at least, repudiating.

But the original fracture in the Great Eagle Father’s coalition involved two women: his partner, referred to as his “common-law wife,” and his anointed political heir Sen. Bong Go on one side, and his daughter and sons on the other. It was noteworthy that his last moments of freedom were spent in the company of his second family. Victory, as Count Galeazzo Ciano once wrote, has a hundred fathers. But defeat is an orphan.

Readers by now will be familiar with the tale I’ve chronicled of how circumstances have combined against the Great Eagle Father. One shouldn’t underestimate the resentment of the political and business classes over past, present, (and the threat of future) disruptions and past slights at the hands of Duterte, and the shambolic frittering away of the political advantage by his eldest daughter; not to mention the chronic inability of a fan base to palpably organize whenever there’s been a showdown, and of course the arrest, on his home (and Duterte’s) turf of Quiboloy and the shrugging off of the Iglesia ni Cristo rallies.