Giving way to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in the May 9, 2022, presidential elections must be the political gambit that Vice President Sara Duterte feels the most regretful about.
We would never know if she could have beaten former Vice President Leni Robredo for the post, or if she could have been the runaway winner for having consistently topped the presidential polls at that time. What we know is that instead of listening to her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, to pursue her presidential ambition, Ms. Duterte aligned herself with former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s political party, the Lakas-CMD, instead of her father’s PDP-Laban, which served as his political launch pad during the 2016 presidential elections.
Fast forward to 2024 and we are witness to the growing, seemingly irreparable cracks in the political alliance between the Dutertes and the Marcoses. Nearly two months after she walked away from the Marcos Cabinet, the vice president has virtually taken off her gloves, chirping away at how badly the country is being run.
While she still has some remaining political mojos, these too could slowly go south without the vaunted government machinery at her disposal. In March, Pulse Asia polls showed that she was toe-to-toe with Senator Raffy Tulfo if presidential elections were to be held within that polling period.
Pulse Asia conducted the survey between March 6 and 10 showing that the two were statistically tied: Tulfo with 35% voter preference and VP Sara with 34%. Former Vice President Leni Robredo trails with 11%, followed by Senator Imee Marcos (5%), former Senator Manny Pacquiao (3%), Senator Robin Padilla (2%), Senator Risa Hontiveros (1%), House Speaker Martin Romualdez (0.5%), Mr. Rodrigo Duterte (0.2%), and former Manila Mayor Isko Moreno (0.1%).
A more recent Social Weather Stations (SWS) poll showed that more Filipinos were unsatisfied with her performance. In a survey conducted from June 23 to July 1, SWS found that 65% of Filipinos were satisfied with the Vice President, and 21% were dissatisfied, yielding a net satisfaction of +44. Duterte resigned on June 19.
Satisfaction dropped from 75% satisfaction, and dissatisfaction rose from 13% in March, which then gave Duterte a +63 net satisfaction. It was a 19-point drop, which led her to her lowest net satisfaction rating so far in her term.
Can she win?
It depends. Ms. Duterte is still popular, as surveys show, but they are just a snapshot in time. It is not predictive of the outcome of the election that is still four years away.
The Dutertes are not coy about the fact that VP Sara is being groomed and positioned as the strongest bet to beat whoever runs in 2028. But conventional political wisdom seems to negate the idea.
First, she is politically nebulous. Her political support base appears weak. From a political standpoint, many people believe she is overrated because her strength emanates only from her father whose name she still carries, despite her marital status.
Second, she had a lackluster stint as secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd). When she resigned, she admitted she didn’t have what it takes to be worthy of the position. She failed to address key issues confronting Philippine education, but instead earned the ire of the educators she had red-tagged.
Ms. Duterte’s monumental ignorance of the education sector extends to her inability to address the needs of teachers, who constitute the single most important sector in the education establishment. She is not an educator, but a local government official with unpredictable temper who is void of management skills and with limited knowledge of the teachers’ concerns. Her disgruntled critics have dubbed her with the unpalatable oxymoronic tag, “the uneducated educator.”
To uplift the condition of the country’s educational system and address teachers’ concerns involves a proper blend of informed vision, collaborative leadership, and prudent decision-making. Unfortunately, Ms. Duterte lacks all three ingredients to become the kind of effective leader who will take the Philippine educational system to global standards.
Third, VP Sara has been alluded to be involved in the bloody but ill-fated war on drugs pursued by the murderous government of her father. When she was the mayor of Davao City, according to the expanded affidavit of retired Senior Police Officer III (SPO3) Arturo Lascañas, she greenlit extrajudicial killings (EJKs) there. Lascañas is described as the “star witness” in the charges of crimes against humanity that have been lodged against former President Duterte and his cohorts before the International Criminal Court (ICC). [Read: The Lascañas affidavit: ‘I killed for Duterte’]
From a political standpoint, Ms. Duterte is neither fish nor fowl. In the current alignment of forces in the political spectrum, she should have been a part of the ruling coalition due to her election as the running mate of then-presidential candidate Marcos. Jr. But she now finds herself as an outsider after her resignation as education secretary. Her recent actions, some parties point out, demonstrate that even she is confused about her political affiliation.
Opposition groups and political parties do not consider her as part of their alliance, and some have even expressed contempt for her posturing. They say that resigning from the Marcos Cabinet does not give her the license to be part of a legitimate opposition.
The vice president is now in political limbo. Opposition leaders like Senator Risa Hontiveros and former Senator Sonny Trillanes once said separately that Ms. Duterte did nothing politically significant to be an opposition leader. She has no known advocacy on national and international issues to qualify her as such.
The ruling coalition is composed of several political parties, such as the Federal Party of President Marcos, Lakas-CMD (Christian Muslim Democrats) led by Speaker Martin Romualdez, National Unity Party, and a faction of Partido Demokratikong Pilipino (PDP)-Laban.
On the other hand, the political opposition is composed of the Akbayan Party of Senator Risa Hontiveros, Samahang Magdalo of ex-Sen. Sonny Trillanes, and the Liberal Party led by Rep. Edcel Lagman and ex-Sen. Leila de Lima.
Will Ms. Duterte run under the banner of Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP)? She herself formally launched the party on February 23, 2018, supported by four governors from the Davao Region. VP Sara said that, in addition to being aligned with the then-Duterte administration, she formed HNP “to pursue the ideals of what we all want, a strong region, a secure life for our constituents, good governance and effective leadership of the members of the party.”
Political mileage which she can harness as part of the ruling party now eludes her. Vice presidents who picked fights with the incumbent presidents and resigned their Cabinet posts were marginalized as what had happened to Emmanuel Pelaez, Fernando Lopez, Salvador laurel, and Teofisto Guingona Jr. History is definitely not on her side.”
The Commission on Elections granted the accreditation of HNP as a regional political party in July 2018. A proposal to turn the party into a national party was shelved by Duterte in January 2019.
Power of the incumbent
Ms. Duterte’s political strength emanates from her position as vice president. The Constitution says she is the automatic successor if ever Marcos Jr. dies or gets incapacitated. Although she is a heartbeat away from the presidency, it does not mean she is that powerful to influence the nation’s political landscape. Since she has severed her ties with the ruling coalition, she could now be best described as a political “nowhere man” who wields residual powers.
Political mileage which she can harness as part of the ruling party now eludes her. Vice presidents who picked fights with the incumbent presidents and resigned their Cabinet posts were marginalized as what had happened to Emmanuel Pelaez, Fernando Lopez, Salvador laurel, and Teofisto Guingona Jr. History is definitely not on her side.
Curiously, Ms. Duterte may have led in previous opinion polls, but political pundits did not consider her lead as significant to ensure her victory in 2028. The fact is that those surveys were conducted without the names of other emerging presidential aspirants, such as Francis “Chiz” Escudero who replaced Juan Miguel Zubiri as Senate president, and newly installed DepEd Secretary Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara who replaced VP Sara as DepEd secretary.
The vice president’s lead is regarded as unsustainable until 2028. Several political figures could appear on the political horizon to give her stiff competition. Her critics say she is unpredictable and prone to tantrums even in public. Would she be able to slug it out in the open to become a major player in 2028? That remains to be seen. – Rappler.com