Briathrail // Albert 2MNG

Oh well… shit’s going down in my home country. As I’m starting to hear much more about it now from various means, man it’s definitely bad.

The alliance that won the 2022 Presidential election, the “UniTeam” of Bongbong Marcos Jr’s PFP and Sara Duterte’s HNP (including some previous kingmakers Lakas-CMD and PMP) has generally been one uneasy alliance from the very beginning of their administration. There was no verbal shit happening but the people have already sensed that the alliance built not on principle but on convenience was not roses and chocolate behind the scenes.

And ever since Sara Duterte bolted out of Lakas-CMD due to “political powerplay”, the people already knew the end of that alliance was coming. Just a matter of when the housebeams rot and the roof falls down. Funny enough, the end got sped up due to money – the 2024 budget deliberation in Congress has noted some irregularities with spending on the VP office’s part, and swiftly moved to realign a bulk of the proposed 2024 budget of Duterte’s office to other agencies. And despite initial assurances last February by Sara Duterte that she has a “good relationship” with the president, and Marcos reciprocated by making the same assurances, those never fooled anyone with a keen eye. Just a matter of time.

The final straw came by June 2024 when Sara Duterte resigned from her appointment as the Education secretary, and months later basically confirmed what everyone already knew – when asked about her relation as Vice-President with the President, she outright told the media that there was no friendship anymore and claimed that they were not friends in the first place and they barely talked with each other before the elections. Funny she said that while Marcos’ election vlogs painted a rosy and vibrant relationship between him and her as the running mates. She talked a lot after as well, and it was a full-blown fallout.

Well, not surprising but not unprecedented based on recent administrations. Leni Robredo and Rodrigo Duterte famously never got along. Jojo Binay and Benigno Aquino III was far more cordial but it was clear they weren’t that closely aligned. But this one was a clear-as-day political divorce. We all just hoped it’ll be at worst remain bubbling like a hot stew and not a full eruption. It was bad already, we just hope that this is the worst because anything worse than a “publicly feuding President and Vice President” is going to be a goddamn disaster.

Well, volcano-level disaster came months later.

On October, she held a press conference at her office that was a full-on personal gripefest, discussing her fallout with the President, claiming that Marcos did not know how to be President and supposedly has led the country “on the road to hell”, and claimed that she told the President’s sister Imee that if the “attacks” against her persisted, she would move to exhume former President Ferdinand Marcos’ remains and supposedly dump them into the sea. And days ago, she claimed in a Zoom press conference (while she was staying in the same detention room as her COS) that she have spoken to a “contract killer” to target the President, his wife and his cousin (House Speaker Martin Romualdez) if she was to be assassinated.

Now, it’s deeply personal. This is fucking bad.

I did check Facebook earlier to see how the UniTeam supporters handled this development based on the news articles’ comments section, and sadly they’re on a shitty civil war. I checked as well on a friend who is a Duterte supporter that went hard in the 2022 elections singing the praises of both Bongbong and Sara to the high heavens, and I saw he removed all his posts before 2024 that mentioned “BBM” or had a picture of Marcos. His timeline is now full of Duterte pictures and articles of support. The news articles’ comments section are divided into four groups – the “solid BBM” Marcos supporters that call Duterte as “Inday Lustay”, the “DDS pa rin” Duterte supporters that call Marcos various derogatory terms (e.g. “bangag”), the unlikable “pink” supporters that act all unreasonably smug and haughty, and those that either barely give a rat’s ass or just looking for a troll-y good time.

And that does not look good. We’re in Year 2 of The Marcos Experience and it’s already a national teleserye. Feuding, death threats, unveiled venomous statements, hearings, trials, uppity press conferences… it’s not going to end well, people. We have 4 more years to go, as Marcos’ term ends in June 30, 2028. My countrymen does not deserve four more years of this shoddy treatment.

Did I vote for BBM or Sara? No. Full disclosure, I voted for Isko Moreno in 2022. In my opinion back then, BBM was a convenient vehicle for the political elite, Leni’s voter base was condescending and unlikeable, and Pacquiao was too raw for an executive position. I also liked Isko personally as well. But as of now, Marcos Jr. is my home country’s president, and as a believer of due democratic process, he is also now my president, regardless of how I personally feel about him. So for me now, I’d rather have him do well than do badly. There’s literally zero benefit for me to wishing him any ill.

What does the future hold for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr?

For one, he is facing a clear divide. He won the Presidential election in 2022 by teaming with Sara Duterte, and their combined supporter and voter count of 31.6 million was double that of his chief rival at the time, Leni Robredo. Had he teamed with a running mate of a lesser political influence and Duterte instead decided to actually run opposite him, I am sure that he either barely edges out both by single-digit percentages or Robredo might’ve won, based on the previous result of Marcos vs Robredo for the VP position long ago when Marcos ran largely as an independent.

Now he basically lost almost half of his voter base. Definitely more than a third, at least. He still enjoys ample support from both the House and Senate, but the upcoming midterm elections next year might be impacted. Should Sara Duterte ramp up the heat and start making political moves to erode support for Marcos, it’s not going to look pretty for him and his allies. And unfortunately for him as well, many of his allies (obviously excluding his kin) are also known opportunists and political butterflies. Should the popular opinion greatly move away from him, I expect those people to start plotting their move as well.

And what about… if by the next 4 years, he barely gets anything done? No landmark achievement, no notable law passed, no tangible changes felt? Well, he will end up – I’ll use a basketball concept – fouling out and giving two free throws to the opposing team. The easiest catnip for any aspiring political candidate running against the administration is the portrayal of the current administration as a flaming stinky dumpster and they hold the fire extinguisher. The current situation isn’t too favorable for Marcos as well – the dollar rate is getting higher, but the economy is seen as growing by various economy pundits and the World Bank. But “growing economy” stats and numbers always never trickle down to the working class. Percentage achievements does not buy the poor man a piece of bread.

Well, what can he do?

I have suggestions. I have to be clear, these below are all just mere suggestions and opinions. I do not have any power, connections nor influence. Just blogging. This isn’t in support of Bongbong Marcos as well – think of it as analysing a team that’s doing poorly in pro basketball.

1) He can move to resolve this problem as soon as possible – in any way he can. This is a wound that should not be allowed to fester and left untreated. He should treat it quick and soon, again, in any way he can. I can’t advise how he will do it, but any move is better than no move at all. We can’t have the top two officials in the land in a political version of a Hell In A Cell match. Previous admins had uneasy relationships with the top officials, yeah, but Binay and Robredo had minuscule House and Senate support. This time, Marcos and Duterte both enjoy a non-negligible amount of support.

2) He can move to ensure his political allies are protected or increased with the upcoming midterm elections. It is an unfortunate fact that incumbents are usually under siege in midterm elections, and next year is no different. Sara Duterte will make the best moves she could to ensure she has allies, more allies the better for her. Marcos is vulnerable on that front. He could not afford to field any beta-male chimps nor any unlikeable aging dragon ladies. Marcos should field the best possible candidates he can regardless of the shade of brown on their nose or the wetness of their lips on his ass. Vae victis, as the old Romans said. Conquer or be conquered, and woe be to the loser. Should he win more or keep his allies as majority, he is safe. If Marcos’ political allies are depleted next year, man, we are in for one shitty cheap perya ride.

3) Try to distance himself from Sara Duterte as much as possible in terms of language without giving the impression of deferring. That is a hard thing to pull off. I lived in a culture back home that any sign of deferral is seen as cowardice or defeatist. Marcos should try to remain genteel without being snobbish, staying neutral without showing out the sharpened knives.

4) Douse cold water on the flames, and let the media’s tendency for sensationalism deal the damage instead. Shit’s on fire right now. In my opinion, the less that the public sees of Sara Duterte in a way that appears that she has any power or authority, the better it will be for Marcos. Just saying – the Vice Presidency, in the absence of a Cabinet position, is essentially a spare wheel with minor official functions. If so, Marcos will be well-advised to treat her office as “basic” as possible under all applicable laws. Keep interaction to a legal respectable minimum, that’s what I’m saying. But even if Sara Duterte keeps calling for press conferences and giving increasingly wilder statements, Marcos must be advised to sit back, keep an ear out, and let the media keep covering her. The current PH news media (at least the major ones) will just do what they do best today – sensationalist journalism. They’ll likely use unflattering pictures and chop up her statements to their liking. I mean, the media has already provided social media with LOTS of unflattering pictures of Duterte and used as meme material. The more she is seen negatively by the press and social media, the better.

5) Start earning brownie points, man. Numbers, stats, far-away infrastructure projects and flattering economic press pieces never gets the vote if most people can’t feel the actual changes. What I’m saying is that Marcos has 4 years to start making tangible and recognizable laws and changes that actually makes people feel that their lives are getting better as a whole. The most effective shield to a siege by the opposition is an administration with actual positive improvements that the population largely benefits from.

What can we do as normal-ass citizens who are caught between Scylla and Charybdis?

What indeed. The best we can do for now is to keep an eye out, be vigilant, avoid joining either side, be empathetic to their supporters’ pain (I should note that this is what the online supporters of Robredo greatly lacked in 2022 as well), and monitor the situation for now. We should allow the people with currently vested legal and enforcement power handle this like adults. We should not attempt to shovel coal into this raging bushfire. It’ll be best for all of us to just… let this simmer down. We can’t do anything about this nationally-covered ugly divorce between our top two government officials. No amount of screaming and simping on social media will move the needle. The marriage is broken irreparably, the two parties are more than happy to stay away for now. Troubling, yes. Dangerous, yes. But we don’t need to waste our working hours yet to birdwatch this. We’re still very, very far from a truly terrible situation that warrants an active public participation, though. Still generally “safe”. But we can all admit this situation is inducing a tinge of discomfort.

Oh, and buy popcorn. I like wasabi popcorn or the caramelized ones from Garrett’s. Or chili-and-sugar coated dried dilis. Peanuts are OK too.