Marcos v Duterte: The family feud shaking the Philippines - Asia Specific podcast, BBC World Service

In the Philippines, several families have long dominated politics. Four years ago, the Marcos and Duterte clans joined forces. and had huge electoral success. But now they're in a messy battle. Vice-President Sara Duterte has announced that she's running. for the top job in two years time. I offer my life, my strength and my future in the service of our nation. While her father, a former leader, is detained in Europe.

for an International Criminal Court trial. He denies any wrongdoing. The current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, is trying to withstand renewed anti-corruption protests. There's a lot happening, but while these families feud, are they delivering for the people of their country? I'm Mariko in Singapore and this is Asia Specific from the BBC World Service.

Twice a week we bring you Asia Pacific stories. unpacked by those who know them best. And today I have our South East Asia correspondent, Jonathan Head. I also have journalist Regine Cabato, who is based in Manila. Welcome both to Asia Specific. Hi, Mariko. Let's start with you, Regine. Big news in recent weeks. that Sara Duterte announcing that she's going to run for the top job in 2028. I guess it's not surprising, but isn't it quite early for her to announce this?

It is. And in that sense, it is quite a bit strange. So a bit of context first for our viewers. Sara Duterte is the daughter of populist President Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently detained at the International Criminal Court, and she's also currently Vice-President of the Philippines. Sara Duterte and the larger family is currently facing a lot of hurdles, but Sara Duterte herself is also facing a lot of challenges at home. She is facing an impeachment case against her.

that could potentially disqualify her from the presidency. And that is precisely why analysts say she's given. this early announcement, very unusual, more than two years before the actual election, because she wants to frame any upcoming case. against her as political persecution. So this way she can kind of frame herself. as a victim, particularly to her supporter base, but also send a signal to congressmen,

to legislators, that I'm going to be in charge in 2028, and so you better toe the line and not vote for the impeachment against me. Yeah, we want to get to all the allegations that, not just she, but also the current president, Bongbong Marcos, faces as well. But, Jonathan, let's paint the picture for viewers. and listeners who might not be so familiar with Filipino politics, because it's always a lot of fanfare with very powerful families.

But four years ago, in 2022, the Marcos-Duterte ticket was a dream team, wasn't it? But it was an unlikely pair. So can you just explain why that is? These are now two perhaps the most powerful political clans in the country, but they're a little different from the more traditional powerbrokers in the Philippines, usually big landed families who dominated politics for decades. The Marcos family almost need no introduction. Marcos, the current president's father, Ferdinand Marcos, dominated the Philippines from the mid 1960s on,

took dictatorial powers. He suspended democracy, was accused of massive corruption. and of extensive human rights abuses, but was also a towering personality. And of course, his wife, Imelda Marcos was just as big a personality. But that, we thought their time was up. in 1986 when we had this pivotal event in Philippines history, a people power uprising that threw out the Marcoses. They were helicoptered out to the island of Hawaii and ushered back.

in a proper democratic rule and sort of accountability and democracy. But I think there was an understanding that Duterte's had also become. very powerful thanks to Duterte's presidency from 2016 on. They're extremely strong in the south of the country, in the city of Davao. And President Duterte finished his term in 2022. For all he was controversial and again extensive. human rights accusations against him, he was still a popular president, and his daughter Sara certainly was very popular then and remains popular.

I think both families understood that if they ran against each other, they'd be kind of cannibalising what you might call the populist vote. in the Philippines. That was the style of their campaign. So they formed this pragmatic alliance. They called it the Unit team. It definitely helped. I mean, President Marcos, the current president, won by an outright majority. That's very rare in a Philippines presidential election. Jonathan, in terms of Rodrigo Duterte being held to face an ICC trial, what has he said about the accusations that he's facing?

Well, he says he doesn't recognise the authority of the ICC. He's refused even to appear in court, so he's dismissed it completely. He's also talking about, you know, with his age, his memory not being particularly good. I think his problem is that while he was president, he didn't try to distance himself at all from the drug wars. You know, he owned up to them. He encouraged police to go really hard. He said that if they killed people, that they wouldn't face any consequences.

So his defence is actually quite difficult. But as he doesn't even recognise the authority of the court, and he says it was completely improper that he was ever sent. to face international justice rather than in a Philippines court. In a sense, that's his main argument. And Regine, when, you know, Jonathan just talked about when the relationship. between the president and the vice president started to sour. Did it come as a surprise or was it kind of almost inevitable, given the two very strong families which had long history in the country's politics?

Some people would say both, pretty much. But there were hints from the beginning that the alliance would not last long. Jonathan mentioned earlier that they realised the pragmatism. of teaming up together. But in the beginning, this was something that the patriarch Rodrigo Duterte actually resisted. He hinted and actually said out loud. that Bongbong Marcos, the current president, is a druggie. And in Duterte's world, this is no light accusation.

In Duterte's world, when you accuse someone of being an addict, it is essentially a death sentence. But somehow they managed to hurdle this. initial diplomatic tussle between the two families. and essentially agreed to becoming the vice-president. Fast forward to a year. Two years later, she was refused the defence portfolio. and assigned to become education secretary instead. For one, the differences in their foreign policy stance became clear,

with the Dutertes having a more pro-China stance. While the Marcos administration has positioned itself to be more open. to the West, but also non-traditional allies. like Canada, Japan, Australia and so on. And so there's kind of been. a clear policy divide between these two families. And then, you know, the the alliance further went to a point of no return, I would say,

when sometime in 2024, Sara Duterte revealed. in a midnight livestream that she had actually contracted. an assassin to kill Bongbong Marcos in the event of her death. And this was a very alarming thing for a vice-president. to announce that there was essentially some kind of, like, death threat hanging over the head of the sitting president. And this was all coming in the midst of the impeachment proceedings.

or corruption scandals that Sara Duterte herself was facing. in Congress. The Marcos administration, in turn, a few months later, essentially turned over Duterte's father, the former president, to the International Criminal Court in a very high profile historical arrest. So we've come to a point where the alliance between these two families, is probably irreparable, I would say.

And, Jonathan, in terms of these impeachment cases that both. the president and the vice-president are facing, what's the timeline here? I mean, because I'm sure this could actually affect Sara Duterte's. ambition to run for presidency. Yes, it certainly does, because if she's impeached, she cannot run. And that's obviously the calculation. Look, impeachment. in the Philippines is a bit like impeachment in the United States. It's a political process. You need the votes.

in the House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress. And what was interesting about the threat to impeach Sara Duterte? You know, there's quite a lot of evidence that funds that. she was using, special funds as a vice-president may have been used improperly. So there is a case there. But President Marcos appears. to have miscalculated very badly on on two actions. You mentioned sending former President Duterte. to the International Criminal Court. I mean, that's exceptional. It's very rare for a former leader to be sent to the ICC.

There are very strong arguments for doing so. I mean, huge numbers of people were killed under his drug war. Lots of people in the Philippines who lost family members want that kind of accountability. But even so, it was clearly a political decision. when President Marcos decided to do that, but it backfired during the midterm elections last year. Actually, Sara Duterte was able to use it to say, you know, a popular president, which Duterte was, gets sent, you know, in handcuffs in a plane back to face foreign justice.

It really played well for her. The impeachment also backfired. President Marcos tried to impeach her last year, and it was turned down by the Supreme Court because. you can't introduce impeachments twice within a year. And there had been an earlier one. But more than that, he didn't do well in the midterm elections. He didn't get his candidates into the Senate. So it's not even clear that the impeachment would have got enough votes. to go up against Sara Duterte, who is a formidable personality.

and is a frontrunner to win the the 2028 election. President Marcos is taking a big gamble. if he can't disable her campaign through impeachment, if she wins the presidency, he can be sure that she will go after him as well. So there's an awful lot at stake here. And it looks to me. like Bongbong Marcos miscalculated on those two actions last year. I'd be very interested, Regine, if you could explain. who is making the decisions in Malacanang Palace,

in the presidential palace around President Marcos, because it does seem to me that he may not be getting very good advice. Who is primarily in charge of the decisions? There are some guesses from analysts, I would say, but there is a lot of inconsistent messaging. because of power struggles within, the Marcos camp, his cousin, the house, uh, the House of Representatives speaker, a former House of Representatives speaker Martin Romualdez.

has had to step down in light of flood control, corruption scandal. And that is another huge thing that has kind of wrapped. the Marcos administration, you know, during the months of the ICC arrest, the scandal would have been completely unthinkable. It was a complete dark horse to the Marcos admin, and it was a can of worms that he had opened himself because, in his own words, during the state of the Nation address, he wanted to look into flood corruption.

But then it opened what could be the largest and deepest, longest running corruption scheme in Philippine history. It's interesting because the situation seems so messy. and yet there are so many allegations of corruption. Jonathan, can you just talk us through how. endemic is corruption in the country? Does it manifest in, I guess, day-to-day life in the Philippines? It's everywhere. But that's true of this entire region.

I mean, it's a characteristic of South East Asia that, frankly, outside of Singapore, there's not a single country that has. properly independent rule of law. If you don't have an independent judiciary, everything basically devolves. to power of money and big powerful figures. If Philippines is not unique in that way, it's not. that profoundly different from Thailand or Indonesia. But it is very, very widespread. And I think what frustrates a lot. of Filipinos is you've got a lot of corruption in Thailand, but actually infrastructure gets built here.

The country appears to be modernising even if its economy is fairly stagnant. In the Philippines, nothing seems to get built or it's very, very slow. The country doesn't change much. It still has the most eye watering. levels of poverty in this region. You know, it's still not quite at the levels of sort of dynamism. It's certainly nowhere near the levels of dynamism you see in a country. like Vietnam, which of course also has its own corruption problems. You know, people complain about corruption and they're right to. I mean, it is a serious problem, but it isn't something you can wish away.

I think the bigger issue here is, you know, President Marcos has, as Regine was saying, he started this particular corruption. investigation into flood controls, it appears, possibly to distract people from his losses during the midterm elections. You know, he decided to open it up as something he could do. in July last year, but it completely backfired. There were these catastrophic floods in Cebu. And the local authorities, local government said,

yeah, they were catastrophic because all the money that's been spent. on flood controls was spent on what are called ghost projects. They weren't built. And there have been allegations made, very serious ones. against the president himself that he's been getting money too. And Regine, President Marcos faces another big protest this week. when it comes to those corruption allegations. What has he said about those allegations that he's facing? So President Marcos has generally promised.

that he would jail people and that he would hold people accountable. whether or not that will actually come to the fore we've yet to see. He has jailed over a dozen people, including some district officials, and the most high profile of which is a former senator. But it's yet to be seen whether that's enough to actually satisfy the public. But just to clarify, so, President Marcos has basically admitted. that corruption, corrupt practices did happen.

and that those responsible need to be held accountable. He has. Yes. And just to clarify as well, the corrupt practices are administration spanning. So they're not just from Marcos's term, which started in 2022. They go back to the administration as well, as well. as potentially the administrations before that. So this has been a very long-running corruption scandal with various modus. from different parts of the country.

Jonathan, in terms of this family feud, it also makes the country's foreign policy rather unpredictable, doesn't it? And I guess the Marcoses were seen to be pro-US, and Duterte pro-China. How do you see this family feud playing out. in terms of the country's foreign policy? It'll be interesting to see if Sara Duterte wins in 2028, whether she does a 180 degree turn away from the alliance.

with the United States that President Marcos has really built up. Um, you know, looking for military ties, as Regine says, also looking for ties with other US allies in the region, but in particular, the decision he's made to confront. China's overwhelming naval and Coast Guard presence. in disputed areas of the South China Sea with the Philippines own, much smaller Coast Guard. And these very dramatic confrontations that many of us have seen close up. with the Chinese Coast Guard water cannoning Filipino boats trying to block the Philippines.

from resupplying coral reefs or islands that they have. I mean, that is a surprising change, turn of events. President Duterte's pro-China stance. in his six years in office was quite striking. I mean, he famously once declared that he'd fallen in love with Xi Jinping. to Xi Jinping's face at a press conference. I think he believed at the time that that the confrontation with China. over the disputed islands of the South China Sea had to be put aside.

in order to encourage Chinese investment. But that Chinese investment never brought the kind of benefits that he hoped to see. And I don't think many Filipinos thought it was worth it. I think President Marcos saw value in standing up for national pride, because Filipino fishermen are being chased away by the Chinese, stopped from fishing. It was becoming an issue, so there was a degree of opportunism in it. We'll have to see whether Sara Duterte swings back. But there are some tough realities here, which is. that US influence in this region is declining.

The Trump administration has bigged up the idea that it will engage more. on the Pacific, but frankly, it's distracted by the Middle East, by it, by its own hemisphere as well. And Regine, what happens next? Because as Jonathan said, Marcos, Bongbong Marcos, cannot rerun in 2028. Obviously we have to wait. What happens to all these impeachment allegations, which both the president and vice-president are denying any wrongdoing?

But in terms of the Marcos family, what could happen next in terms of possibly coming up. with another candidate to run for presidency or other seats? That's a great question, because the current dilemma of the Marcos clan is. that he has no immediate, winnable political heir to the presidency. And that presents quite a threat for existential threat for them. As I mentioned, other analysts would say. that whoever teams up with Marcos, whoever gets a Marcos endorsement.

or works actively and publicly. with him is very likely to lose the upcoming election. because of his declining ratings. and because of the vast unpopularity of the current administration. The current feud between the Marcos. and the Dutertes families has opened up, though, some bit of space in between. for a potential comeback of the Liberal opposition. So that's also something that I'm sure Democratic forces.

in the Philippines are currently considering who they want to field. And, historically, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this, front runners, early frontrunners do not typically win the election. So a lot of analysts were quite taken aback by Sara Duterte's. early announcement, because now, basically the whole apparatus. of the state, the whole, opposition can be turned against her. because there are still two years to go for her to campaign,

essentially. So anything can happen. And as we've seen in Philippine history before politics can totally change. overnight. The arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte. was completely unthinkable just a month before, I would say, and we don't know yet how, Sara Duterte is going to fare. after all the the impeachment charges against her will roll. So we've yet to see. I think there's something else that stands out. about what's happened to Marcos.

And it is very striking to me, which is that. in his time as president, he's really failed to make much of a mark. Apart from this confrontational foreign policy against China. and the South China Sea, he doesn't have a good story to tell. Now, the reason that Marcos and the Unity, his alliance with Sara Duterte performed so well. in the 2022 election was they had a story that Filipinos liked. It was a largely untrue story. It was, you know, they cobbled up.

this completely sort of confected idea of a golden era under Marcos's father. And then there was talk of buried gold. It was almost ludicrous, but it was very effectively put out there, and it appealed. And the opposition in 2022, Leni Robredo, who is then the vice-president who challenged Marcos, although she had tremendous support, she's clean, she's decent, she's not corrupt, she's principled. But there wasn't a story that captured people's imaginations. Successful Filipino presidents have always had. a story that lodges in people's minds.

Cory Aquino, when she overthrew Marcos as the sort. of saintly figure restoring cleanliness and decency to politics, Joseph Estrada, the sort of swaggering action actor. who was going to sort out all the problems which he didn't do. And, of course, Rodrigo Duterte had this extraordinary narrative of, you know, using incredibly tough methods to deal with crime. Marcos, once he got past this tremendously successful. election campaign, hasn't really had a good story. And his personality doesn't come across as particularly charismatic.

And I think that's partly what's held him back. And whoever leading into the 2028 election wants to replace him. is going to have to come up with a really compelling story that captures. the imagination of Filipinos. Sara Duterte may well be able to do that. Her family has a great story to tell. It's a question of whether those who want to challenge her can come up. with an equally compelling narrative. This is a huge conversation that we can keep talking. for many hours, but we'll pause it here. Jonathan and Regine, thank you so much.

Thank you for having us. You've been watching Asia Specific from the BBC World Service. with me, Mariko Oi, in Singapore. If you have any questions or thoughts on what we've covered in this episode. or any other stories from the region, please leave us a comment below. You can also get in touch with us on Email, AsiaSpecific@bbc.co.uk. And you know the drill, click like and subscribe so you never miss an episode. See you next time.