by PHAR KIM BENG
Family feud-fueled vote could herald Sara Duterte’s presidential rise and render Marcos Jr a lame duck with three years still in office
As the Philippines heads toward pivotal midterm elections on May 12, a dramatic political shift is underway.
Once considered the crown prince of dynastic restoration, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr is now floundering, with his public approval rating plummeting from 42% in February to 25% in March, according to a Pulse Asia Research poll.
Meanwhile, Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of the now-detained former strongman leader Rodrigo Duterte, is rising in the electorate’s eye, up from 52% in February to 59% in March, the same poll showed.
The arrest and extradition of Rodrigo Duterte to The Hague earlier this year on charges of crimes against humanity during his bloody war on drugs was a seismic moment in Philippine politics.
While many in the international community lauded the move as a step toward accountability for thousands of unpunished extrajudicial killings, its domestic reception has been mixed.
For many Filipinos, particularly in Mindanao and Duterte strongholds across the Visayas, the spectacle of a former president being tried abroad rather than at home has stirred nationalist resentment.
So far, it appears this Western international intervention, aided and abetted by Marcos Jr’s government, has bolstered, not weakened, Sara Duterte’s political standing.
She has deftly positioned herself as the inheritor of her father’s political mantle while avoiding his excesses. And the symbolism of her defending national sovereignty—by implication, if not explicitly—has endeared her to a Filipino public weary of foreign moralizing and elite Manila politics.
This puts the Marcos Jr administration in a bind. What was likely intended as a triumphant moment of legal reckoning has, in practice, sparked a backlash. In the eyes of many, the Hague trial is less about Rodrigo Duterte and more about a state that is increasingly perceived as unstable and externally manipulated.
The many reasons for Marcos Jr’s fading popularity are empirical and deeply felt on the ground. First, a cost-of-living crisis continues to batter ordinary Filipinos, with Rice, sugar, and basic utility prices all surging.
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