🇵🇭 Disuni-team: Marcos Jr vs. Duterte Sr

Hello friends!

I’ve been dreading cracking into the Philippines this week. I love some drama, but this is a lot and I hope I’ve done a decent job of getting the bones together for us here.

 Let’s go,

Erin Cook

CNN Philippines logs off

A cursed sight. CNN Philippines was shut down suddenly on Jan. 31 after an announcement on — get this — Jan. 29. “The decision follows significant financial losses sustained over the past years, despite rigorous efforts to adapt and innovate in a rapidly evolving and challenging media landscape. We are aware of the impact of this closure on our valued employees and talents, we assure all affected staff will be provided with severance packages,” CNN Philippines-owner Nine Media Corporation said in a statement, as per AFP. 

This stinks! CNN Philippines has been an excellent resource for this newsletter over the years thanks to the hard work of 300 people who have just lost their jobs. I’m very alarmed to see that production didn’t just cease near immediately, but years of work has been taken down to save a few pesos on server costs. It’s always a terrible blow when this happens and plenty of CNN PH reporters and alumni have noted they were unaware of when it was coming down so they weren’t able to PDF their clips. Rude!

But the bigger issue is the old adage that journalism is the first draft of history. Journalists of the Philippines, not just at CNN PH but across the industry, have done exceptional work for years. Where is it! I don’t know what the answer is, it certainly should be seen as a public good but it isn’t. At the very least, researchers, academics and the interested really ought to have been warned! 

Frenemies, enemies and the whole damned mess

Now, on to a story that CNN Philippines would’ve covered brilliantly. The rift between President Bongbong Marcos and the Duterte clan has deepened with Vice President Sara Duterte’s dad, former president Rodrigo Duterte, getting super involved. 

Marcos Jr is a drug addict whose name appeared on the war on drug lists, the former president said last weekend. Don’t worry about him, that’s just the fentanyl talking said Marcos Jr in probably the only funny thing he’s ever said. “I hope his doctors take better care of him,” he added. Do a drug test then, Duterte dared. Yeesh, I can’t keep up. All a bit Hunger Games elite given that just a whiff of allegations saw thousands of poor Filipinos gunned down in the streets over Duterte’s rhetoric, a bloody period Marcos is not keen for the International Criminal Court to probe further. 

Rift? What rift? The President said in a press conference Tuesday evening, as reported by Reuters. “Uniteam is not just one party of two parties or three parties. It's the unification of all political, hopefully all political forces in the Philippines to come together for the good country,” he said, referring to the Marcos-Duterte ticket. 

The unity message didn’t get back to Papa Duterte who, the same evening, said political forces in his home region of Mindanao were starting a secessionist movement, the Inquirer reported. Don’t expect it to be “bloody,” he reassured reporters, and it would follow United Nations processes. Don’t expect it to happen at all, I’d say. 

Over at Nikkei Asia, Ramon Royandoyan has an excellent piece tracing the breakdown between the two clans. The initial fraying was over the confidential funds Sara Duterte wanted but was denied amid sweeping controversy. Analyst Cleve Arguelles says that Duterte senior never really wanted Sara to sign up with him and had portrayed Marcos as a weak leader, so there’s no love lost there. 

Royandoyan lays the most recent developments out like this: son/brother Paolo Duterte is in strife for extravagant spending raising eyebrows about what he’s up to in Congress, and a renewed interest in charter change (a whole other thing we’ve touched on repeatedly so shan’t rehash today) led by Marcos Jr has annoyed Duterte Sr for reasons I don’t really understand. 

So, what happens next? Could all come together in the end, says Anthony Lawrence Borja of De Salle University, or it could fracture. Midterms are due next year and this year will shape that race. “There is a chance for the Duterte-Marcos unity to be reasserted, or it can be a giant split between at least three camps: the old liberal opposition ... Duterte consolidating [a] position as opposition and the Marcos camp,” he said. 

Over in Rappler, this analysis piece has a hell of a lede: ‘It was an alliance that critics and political observers had jinxed as doomed from the start. The only questions were, when and what would happen to Vice President Sara Duterte, who is still a member of the Marcos Cabinet.’ 

Cleve Arguelles is in hot demand for comment this week and he told the outlet that Sara must “still enjoy the confidence, the trust and the support of the President,” given she remains in the cabinet. As Rappler puts it: ‘Marcos said as much on Tuesday, in response to questions in a media interview. He also said that his professional relationship with the Vice President is “exactly the same,” sounding like a showbiz personality trying to cover up a rocky relationship with a love team partner.’ 

Whew, this is a big mess. Might be time for the butcher paper and textas to untangle it all — shall report back!