The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose,” the legendary statesman Henry Kissinger once famously argued. Stripped of power and access to all key agencies of the state, the Duterte dynasty has been forced to wage a guerrilla warfare against the Marcos administration.
Over the past year, the once-invincible Dutertes have been gradually reduced to a ragtag cabal of “destabilizers” after getting purged from all key positions in the government. Congress held a months-long set of hearings that exposed the multifarious anomalies undergirding the Duterte style of governance, while the Department of Justice and National Bureau of Investigation threatened to file serious criminal charges against the key members of the family. Even worse, the Dutertes began to bleed support and popularity, with Vice President Sara Duterte’s net approval ratings standing at barely above 20 percent in the fourth quarter survey of Pulse Asia last year.
Sara Duterte even faced the serious threat of impeachment, which would disqualify her from running for office perpetually. So far, however, the notorious family has won by Kissinger’s metric. The Marcos Jr. administration’s various communications faux pas and controversies surrounding the unprecedented $109 billion national budget for the new year gave a second life to the Dutertes.
On one hand, some members of the genuine opposition unwittingly became an instrument of the Dutertes’ machinations by singularly focusing real and perceived anomalies in the government’s new budget. Eager to exploit the situation, the pro-Duterte camp went on the propaganda offensive by, inter alia, portraying themselves as victims of a ”witch hunt” by a supposedly singularly corrupt administration.
The Duterte line basically goes this way: “Why obsesses over ’millions’ of confidential fund under Sara Duterte’s tenure in the Department of Education, when ‘billions’ are being corrupted by our opponents?” In short, the pro-Duterte camp argued that even if allegations of anomalies were true, theirs were only miniscule indiscretions—“napakaliit” in Sara Duterte’s words—compared to en masse theft of public funds by their enemies.
This narrative, however, could have easily been countered had well-meaning champions of good governance proactively called out the Dutertes’ hypocrisy and lack of moral authority as well as actively reminded the public of billions of anomalous deals during the Duterte presidency, especially at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Remember the Pharmally scandal? The Department of Health spending anomalies? Oh, and lest we forget, the Chinese Pogos, which brought billions of “dirty money” into the country under the previous administration under the most shadowy circumstances? The list is long.
Not to mention, billions of confidential funds enjoyed by the Dutertes throughout their decades of uninterrupted rule in one of the country’s largest cities. As Davao-native former associate Justice Antonio Carpio has repeatedly argued, the Dutertes practically “invented” the “confidential fund” phenomenon, which has been the cornerstone of their power since they first took over Davao City.
The Dutertes have also unabashedly appropriated the whole “People Power” mantra, even if the pro-Duterte camp has been the biggest slanderers of the Edsa People Power revolt and its ultimate hero, Ninoy Aquino. Mind you, a major religious group aligned with the Dutertes is even set to launch its own massive “peace rally” in a clear show of force against opponents of the notorious dynasty.
The ultimate fault, however, lies with the ruling administration. Whether due to temperamental diffidence or overabundance of political caution, Mr. Marcos has repeatedly failed to seize the moment. Worse, he has handed the Dutertes a perfect opportunity to distract the public and hijack the genuine opposition by refusing to rein in his legislative allies engaged in allegedly questionable fiscal practices ahead of the 2025 elections. Some pro-Marcos elements have argued that they can pin down the Dutertes after the midterm elections and/or settle for a containment strategy, which would keep the notorious dynasty on its toes for the foreseeable future. What they tend to forget is that the Dutertes are a heartbeat away from recapturing Malacañang, and Sara Duterte is still a top contender for the 2028 presidential elections. And should they come back to power, the Dutertes have made it clear that there will be unfathomable vengeance against all their enemies!
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rheydarian@inquirer.com.ph