MANILA – Heading into a new year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has plenty of reasons to be confident about his political prospects.
On one hand, his allies continue to top pre-election surveys, indicating a potential landslide victory for pro-administration candidates in next year’s midterm elections, broadly seen as a referendum on Marcos Jr’s popularity and the broader political opposition’s viability.
Thanks to the administration’s vast resources and organizational machinery, pro-Marcos candidates are widely expected to dominate the next legislature as well as key local government positions. Meanwhile, the Philippines is also generally optimistic about prospects of even stronger defense ties under a second Trump presidency.
Not only does the Philippines enjoy bipartisan support in the US Congress, but the incoming national security and foreign policy team in the White House is also filled with China hawks, who will likely prioritize frontline allies such as the Philippines.
But all is not well in Manila. Marcos Jr confronts existential risks at home from his former allies, the Duterte dynasty, as well as rising tensions with China in the South China Sea. At once, the Philippines is grappling with both a New Cold War between the world’s rival superpowers and a hot political war at home between the Philippines’ two most powerful political families.
The situation could seemingly tilt toward instability. Not long after publicly fantasizing about beheading the president, Vice President Sara Duterte made yet another alarming threat against Marcos Jr amid a festering feud between the once-close allies.
“Don’t worry about my safety. I have talked to a person and I said, if I get killed, go kill [Marcos Jr], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke,” she warned during a dramatic livestream while hunkered down in her brother’s (Paolo) office at the Philippine House of Representatives.
In recent months, the Philippine legislature has been investigating alleged wrongdoings by her family, including during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly drug war as well as current Vice-President Sara Duterte’s questionable practices as the head of the well-oiled Department of Education.
After cussing at the Speaker of the Congress, Martin Romualdez, and his relatives at the Malacañang Palace, namely First Lady Liza Araneta and President Marcos Jr, Sara Duterte warned that she had told her contracted assassin to “not stop until you kill them [all] and he said yes” without providing more details.
As former allies of the president, the Dutertes feel betrayed and are incensed by ongoing investigations into their alleged abuses and corrupt practices.
Facing public backlash, she later walked back her threats, but the damage was done. The Malacañang Palace immediately responded by characterizing the vice president’s statement as an “active threat” that is “clear and unequivocal.” Just over a day later, the usually mild-mannered Marcos Jr lashed back in a fireside speech to the nation.
“The statements we heard in the previous days were troubling,” the Filipino president said. “There is the reckless use of profanities and threats to kill some of us…If planning the assassination of the president is that easy, how much more for ordinary citizens?”, he added.
Recognizing the need to draw a hard line, Marcos vowed: “I will fight them.” Shortly later, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) made the unprecedented move of subpoenaing the second most powerful official in the Philippines.
It remains to be seen if the Marcos Jr administration will press ahead with filing criminal charges in coming weeks, while his cousin, Speaker Martin Romualdez, will likely corral legislative support for potential impeachment proceedings against Sara Duterte.
With a sufficient number of loyalists and fence-sitters in the Philippine Senate, Sara Duterte is likely safe from impeachment for now, which requires super-majority support in both houses of the Congress.
But much will depend on the actions and calculus of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which played a key role in downfall of presidents Marcos Sr and Joseph Estrada in past. Former president Duterte quickly came to his daughter’s rescue by unfurling personal attacks on his successor and calling on the military to withdraw support from Marcos Jr.
In a thinly-veiled call for a coup against Marcos Jr, the former president attacked his incumbent as a “drug addict” and argued, “there is a fracture in government, and only the military can see the solution.” Earlier this year, he made a similar call in an incendiary speech against Marcos Jr and even threatened to oversee the separation of his home island of Mindanao from the rest of the Philippines.
Over the weekend, AFP chief General Romeo Brawner Jr reiterated that the armed forces’ “loyal[ty] to the Constitution and Chain of Command” and their commitment to “remain non-partisan, with utmost respect for our democratic institutions and civilian authority.” Almost exactly a year ago, the top general warned of potential coup plots within the armed forces, especially among former generals and security officials tied to the Dutertes.
Should the Philippine military and intelligence agencies unearth credible evidence of seditious acts and assassination plots by the Dutertes, the Marcos Jr administration will be in a strong position to impeach the vice president and press criminal charges.
For now, however, the Philippine military’s concern is potential exploitation of domestic upheavals by external actors, especially given the Dutertes’ known close ties with China. Earlier this year, Philippine authorities traced a deepfake video targeting Marcos Jr to pro-Beijing opposition elements.
China has allegedly deployed covert social media campaigns and influence operations to boost the Dutertes, reinforce political divisions and undermine confidence in the Marcos Jr administration.
For Manila, any Duterte-China axis could prove particularly potent in light of festering disputes in the South China Sea. Alarmed by the trajectory of the disputes, the US, a treaty ally of the Philippines, has publicly acknowledged deploying a special “Task Force Ayungin” to assist Manila’s resupply missions to the hotly-contested Second Thomas Shoal, which was the site of multiple near-clashes between Philippine and Chinese maritime forces earlier this year.
“I visited the Command and Control Fusion Center in Palawan today. I also met with some American service members deployed to US Task Force Ayungin, and I thanked them for their hard work on behalf of the American people and our alliances and partnerships in this region,” the outgoing US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wrote in a social media post following his visit to the nearby province of Palawan last week.
Philippine National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano has stressed that the US-led Task Force Ayungin would have “no direct participation” in actual resupply missions to the contested shoal. But the two allies are clearly keeping their options open should China up the ante in the near future as a new administration takes over the White House.
Meanwhile, the Philippines is also grappling with the expanded presence of Chinese militia forces, which have repeatedly pierced into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and surrounded Manila-claimed land features.
“[Beijing has] been more aggressive in denying us access to our exclusive economic zone in the western Philippines. They have really placed a lot of these pseudo-military vessels disguised as coastguard vessels and maritime militia vessels in the areas west of the Philippine Sea,” complained Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr.
Perhaps unlike any Filipino leader in recent memory, Marcos Jr confronts the unenviable task of grappling with simultaneous challenges both at home (from the Dutertes) and from overseas (from China). And it’s precisely the publicly known partnership of the Dutertes and China that makes the challenge even more profound for the Filipino president.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @RichHeydarian
In the interest of balance. The alleged so-called ‘deep fake’ video of Marcos authority is ASPI. The Australian US State Department funded outfit has no expertise in any technology to identify fake videos. It is however the recipient of Australian government and US largeese. You are a bad boy Richie not to mention this.
BS, it distracts Marcos from provoking China.
Marcos Junior is a sell-out. He needs to understand that trusting the US is a lost cause. Remain neutral and do not become the Ukraine of Asia. The US has zero credibility. Even a street dog understands that.