🇵🇭 We simply must talk about Marcos-Duterte

Hello friends!

A nice big long freebie on the Philippines today. This is by no means a comprehensive look at what’s up in the infamously complicated and juicy politics of Manila — we don’t even touch on Gloria Macapagal Arroyo! Instead, I see this as a reference point and decent base for what may (or may not be!) the enormous stories of the coming months. 

There’s a lot to get through and everything is connected so I’ve done my best to split it up into sections that, hopefully, make it more manageable. 

Let’s crack in!

Is it a split, or is it a coup in the making?

Is something happening in the Philippines, or do some factions just want us to think there is? Maybe a bit of both, I think. 

The alliance between President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr and Vice President Sara Duterte, once fully united on the Uniteam election ticket, is under immense pressure. This has been simmering — beginning immediately after taking government when Duterte was denied the Defence Secretary post she wanted — and I think it’s less a case of one key incident and more a case of the divergent priorities within the leadership team. Bongbong, to his credit, appears to be focused primarily on normalising policy and presentation after six chaotic years of President Rodrigo Duterte. 

He wants fewer headlines about the Philippines as the wild west and better relations with the world — and that includes allowing the International Criminal Court to resume its investigation into the Duterte-era war on drugs. I say this, of course, with an enormous caveat: I do not trust him and will not be surprised if, in the future, things get dramatic. And what does Sara Duterte want? Most infamously, a confidential slush fund worth millions of dollars to be administered by her office with no oversight. Ah, no, said Congress in the end, denying the demand. 

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief-of-Staff, General Romeo Brawner Jnr, warned at the start of the month that there were moves afoot for “destabilisation efforts” against Marcos and that some of that has come from former AFP officers. Stay out of it, he warned serving members, before clarifying the next day that there is actually no active coup plot. Okayy. 

Rumours have been thick since, with former president Duterte relishing in stirring the pot. Columnist Antonio Montalvan II, quoted by Raissa Robles in the SCMP, said the former prez is “on panic mode, with the ICC coming to town.” 

So what happens if you’re the VP and your dad won’t shut his mouth? “We're okay,” Duterte the younger told media yesterday. “I believe that I still have the trust of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.,” CNN Philippines reported from Quezon City, where Duterte was attending a children’s event. Still, her colleagues are doing their “due diligence” in talk that Duterte may find herself facing an impeachment hearing, stemming largely from within the House. 

I say this as an Australian who has seen many a government torn down over headlines, rumours and innuendo: enough talk about it will see this come to a head. 

Free at last, Leila De Lima

De Lima long maintained her innocence, and given everything the world knows about how then-president Rodrigo Duterte functions it was an easy story to believe. The pair had been long-time rivals, if we can call it that, dating back to De Lima’s time as chair of the Commission on Human Rights. Under that role, De Lima was instrumental in investigating the Davao Death Squads — vigilante and extrajudicial killings rampant under Duterte’s time as mayor of the city. 

She went on to serve as the Justice Secretary under the Benigno Aquino III government and picked up a senate seat in the 2016 elections. Elected on a platform of her own human rights work, De Lima never shied away from attacking Duterte’s words and his dirty ‘war on drugs’ that left thousands of Filipinos dead and orphaned. 

This timeline compiled by the Inquirer shows just how garbage what happened next was. Duterte launched his war on drugs immediately after his inauguration (like, that night) in June 2016, by August of that year had turned on De Lima calling her an “immoral woman” and speaking at length about sex and drug scandals he believed her to be involved in. It was, truly, one of the most heinously transparent ways to tarnish a woman, particularly of her stature, and it is still staggering that it worked. 

In September, known drug criminals testified before the House that De Lima was involved in the trade and Duterte began calling for her to be jailed. In early 2017, the Department of Justice — then overseen by Duterte’s old school chum Vitaliano Aguirre II — filed charges relating to the selling of drugs. By the end of February, she’s jailed and that’s how she stayed until last week. 

Come 2021, De Lima runs again for her senate spot but doesn’t quite make it. Still, the image of a woman long-time human rights campaigner jailed by one of the country’s worst rights abusers and arch-misogynists is a stark one. As Duterte’s star faded, witnesses began recanting and the charges looked increasingly tenuous. One by one, De Lima was acquitted of two of the eventual charges and — finally, after more than six years — bailed from prison a week ago. 

So, now what? De Lima has spent her first week of freedom catching up with her family and renewing her driver's licence. But vowed to return to Manila because there’s a lot of work to be done.

“She sacrificed a long time of her life, she lost many things that cannot be recovered, but finally she is free,” said former vice president and close friend Leni Robredo after meeting with De Lima last week, as reported in this lovely piece from Rappler. 

I’ve been struck by De Lima’s immense grace since her release. Speaking before media and supporters last week, she thanked friends and well-wishers as well as the judge who granted bail and President Bongbong Marcos for “respecting the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.” She took a road so high I don’t think I’ll ever see it when asked about Duterte and possibly getting one back on him: “God bless him, he knows what he did to me,” she said, as reported by the Associated Press. 

Still, don’t rule anything out just yet. De Lima has always welcomed the International Criminal Court investigation into Duterte’s war on drugs and her lawyers have suggested she might have a lot to say to investigators. 

“She is, of course, interested in continuing the work that she has started. And again, if there is a need for her to become a resource person, or [turn over] all the pieces of evidence that she may have or that her committee was able to secure during that point in time (before being detained), she’s willing to furnish it to the ICC or to any investigating authority for that matter,” lawyer Dino de Leon, part of her legal team, told the Inquirer. 

I kinda want to see De Lima wreak vengeance. I’m always reminded of Ana P Santo’s brilliant ‘Machismo populism’ take for the Atlantic back in 2018 in which she makes a strident case that misogyny and the homegrown brand of machismo, exemplified in Duterte like none other, is behind Duterte’s bloodlust. De Lima and Robredo were Duterte’s two highest-profile women enemies, but Santos notes that with all the talking of wishing to be first in the queue to rape murdered women and kissing overseas Filipino workers without consent and in front of hundreds underscores that Duterte, at his core, doesn’t see women as people. 

Roddy Duterte gets his (maybe)

Without the power of Malacañang behind Rodrigo Duterte, things are looking different. France Castro, a congresswoman representing the Alliance of Concerned Teachers party-list, has filed what looks like the first criminal complaint against the former prez. 

Speaking on a local news TV show in Davao last month about his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, Duterte rattled off a list of names of critics who should be killed using the confidential funds Duterte the younger was desperate to get her hands on. “Do not ever think, France, that you have already armour just because you are a member of Congress, that you are no longer vulnerable against the anger coming from the deaths of the military and police,” he said, referring to his obsessive belief that anyone to the left of him is a communist sympathiser that shares blame for the deaths of security personnel. 

While he only said ‘France’ and not her full name, given how vocal Castro had been in preventing the release of the funds to the VP it’s a no-brainer. “I got really nervous considering his influence and track record,” Castro told the AP, and fair enough too. Both Castro and Duterte Sr. have been ordered to face a government prosecutor in Quezon City early next month. 

Duterte has responded characteristically saying he’s happy to go to jail and accused Castro of “oppressing” him and reiterating his red-tagging: “They cut into the mainstream; they are rebels. They want to ruin the Philippines,” he said, as per the Diplomat. 

Marcos returns to Hawaii

“Let me say that I have waited a very long time to say, aloha!” President Bongbong Marcos said yesterday in Hawaii. He’s stopping off in Honolulu on his way back home after APEC in California and if you don’t like the optics of Marcos Jr having a good time in Hawaii after, you know, you’re not alone. “No Aloha for Marcos,” chanted protestors out the front of the Hawaii Convention Centre. 

It’s his first time back in the state after thirty years. Rappler notes that while the state gave the Marcos clan a home after they self-exiled in the heady days of the EDSA movement, they still face charges of failing to pay out repatriations to victims of the Martial Law era. No bother when the presidency gives you diplomatic immunity. 

In weird comments he made while still in California, he sought to ‘absolve’ those involved in the movement. “I never blamed them… that’s how things happen. I don’t take things personally. They don’t need my forgiveness. If they want it, I will give it to them. I will fight for my beliefs. They fought for their beliefs. And that was the result. It’s life. That’s what life… that’s what it’s about,” he said when asked if he had forgiven protestors. 

As you can imagine, that kicked off a round of outrage and straight-up disgust among progressives who are critical of Marcos take 2. Soon, he’ll return home and we’ll see what happens next!