The Duterte Elimination in Three Acts

With an extended prologue from a previous presidency

By: Manuel L. Quezon III

The eclipse of the formidable political machine of former president Rodrigo R. Duterte in the struggle for political primacy in the Philippines by the forces of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been accomplished in three acts. The vendetta between the two camps, carefully watched in Washington, Beijing, and the United Nations, pits the two most powerful political forces in the Philippines against each other.

Political analysts say Duterte’s allies remain the Marcos coalition’s biggest threat in next year’s midterms, with significant support across the country, and with his daughter Sara, the vice president its most popular if diminished politician. But it is increasingly apparent that he is a spent force, unlikely to turn out the vast crowds that characterized him early on.

Act 1 was the erosion of Duterte’s political infrastructure, the neutralization of his ally former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the discreet accommodation of the International Criminal Court, which wishes to put Duterte on trial for the excesses of his bloody drug war, and the exoneration of Leila de Lima, the former chairperson of the Philippine Human Rights Commission (later secretary of justice), who Duterte had arrested in 2017 and held in custody in what is widely considered a personal vendetta for investigating what was called Duterte’s “Davao Death Squad” while he was mayor of Davao.

Act 2 was the dismantling of the POGOs, the online gaming operations that lured millions of Chinese citizens with newfound wealth to gamble online by credit card outside the long arm of Chinese law, often running into lovelorn scams that cost them thousands and frustrated mainland officials. It would grow into one of the biggest political scandals in decades and would ensnare officials close to Duterte.

Act 3 was the smashing of the power (and the media network) of Apollo Quiboloy, the charismatic preacher who billed himself as the “Appointed Son of God,” founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and a spiritual adviser to Duterte, conveniently wanted by the United States Justice Department on international sex charges. Estimates of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ’s membership, to be in the millions, are only in the range of fewer than 200,000.

The anticipated outcome after all these is the implosion of Sara, Duterte’s daughter and projected future president, with the case now being made rather systematically in the House of Representatives, whose powerful speaker is after all Martin Romualdez, Marco’s cousin and his own candidate to succeed him as president. The taps have been turned off, with the vice president’s loss of her audit-proof intelligence budgets. There is the increasingly eccentric behavior of the Vice President, a phenomenon that has to be seen in parallel to the disintegration of the Duterte political machine. Both she and the President have kept things civil with neither the President nor the Vice President directly attacking each other, preferring, wisely, to let things speak for themselves. The Vice President herself has taken to muttering darkly about having been attacked, without giving specifics as to when, or how, much less by whom—“all of them” did it, she said.

Where the Dutertes remain formidable is online, and a clear demonstration of this is the rumor mill that recently compelled the president to deny he’s sick (and with it, the even stranger story that he had assaulted the First Lady).

Nonetheless, the Dutertes are in trouble, not so much because the former president may eventually be indicted in the International Criminal Court for his drug war. His dilemma lies in a very serious internal inadequacy that even his own children can’t fight because they are gasping for air in their own battles. Sara, originally not a respondent in the ICC case, was ultimately included as a secondary respondent after the ICC assayed the testimonial evidence submitted. The elder son Baste, who followed his father as mayor of Davao City, has been the subject of rumors since June that he will be suspended from public office. The other son Paolo is now facing criminal charges before the courts for drug smuggling together with alleged POGO financier Michael Yang, who grew rich during the Duterte presidency. Paolo also faces graft complaints. Drug smuggling alone will cost him the prospect of life imprisonment.

The wellsprings of the demise

Duterte’s chief political strategist and ideologue, Leoncio B. Evasco Jr., has been hopelessly impotent to produce warm bodies to unseat Marcos in a people power to catapult Sara to the presidency and restore the might of Dutertismo. As Duterte’s think tank, Evasco conceptualized and strategized two rallies that generated little enthusiasm. If the old man, now 79, has one foot in the grave, so too is Evasco who is now 80. The Duterte dream of restoring itself to the presidential palace at Malacañang doesn’t have the luxury of time, much less of stamina and of bright ideas.

The former rebel priest Evasco was Duterte’s campaign manager for the latter’s first foray in Davao City politics in 1988. Widely regarded as Duterte’s alter ego, Evasco was responsible for crafting a grassroots movement for Duterte’s presidential run in 2016. He was his national campaign manager. Duterte appointed him cabinet secretary in 2016 and placed 12 government agencies under his supervision. After the Duterte victory in 2016, Evasco in October 2016 organized the Kilusang Pagbabago, a movement designed to generate citizen-driven support for Duterte. Among its aims were to fight the culture of corruption ingrained in government, participatory governance to protect the electorate’s gains against elitist politics, and support for Duterte’s war on drugs.

All that of course, easily went down the drain in six years. Duterte created his own set of Chinese business cronies who feasted on the largesse of government contracts. The fight against corruption increasingly became nebulous as Duterte rewarded himself with huge unaudited confidential funds, some of it allegedly going to rewards for extrajudicial kill quotas of police in the drug war.

Overall, the Duterte rhetoric of tough-talk bravado was not designed to see a change in governance “by empowering the people in raising their political consciousness.” If ever it saw success, it succeeded in damaging the moral psyche of the Filipinos by using troll-generated popularity. Duterte was exposed as a quintessential trapo (traditional politician) whose aim was only self-preservation and entitlement for his family.

If the Maisug (brave) rally led by Duterte’s press secretary Harry Roque on August 29 was the gauge, the Duterte magic is now dead. Roque chastised rallyists who left in the middle of his speech, imploring them to come back because food had yet to be served.

Simply put, the people are not buying a Duterte return to power. The tough talk against corruption was a big dud. Roque himself is the wrong speaker for these rallies as one of the most hated personalities ever in the national arena. He now faces the grim prospect of charges for having allegedly enriched himself in office under Duterte and is ensnarled in the POGO investigation.

The Maisug rallies turned to embattled Apollo Quiboloy’s sect followers. It boasted of making an “8-million march to Malacañang.” It never happened.

The Duterte dilemma lies not in the break-up of team unity and the unrelenting attacks against his family by the House of Representatives, headed by Romualdez. His real dilemma lies in the bankruptcy of his political strategy that he and Evasco thought they could reprise from his 2016 run.

An interesting showdown took place inside the Duterte administration between Leoncio Evasco and Bong Go, Duterte’s former Special Assistant to the President and Head of the Presidential Management Staff, now a senator. It took place both behind the scenes and in plain view for all to see as both competed to amass and defend turf while trying to dismantle the other side. At first, Evasco won. Then Go rolled him back, leaving Evasco no recourse but to leave to pursue a failed local government bid.

As of January 2017 the staggering ambition –and organization—of Evasco's vision to remold the bureaucracy, change the constitution, and institute a permanent power-holding mass movement, was not only evident but also being attempted. Later that month saw glimpses of the party-cadre past of Evasco playing out in his vision of a mass movement to make all political parties obsolete. But by March, it became clear that while Evasco might push, others would push back. The first reverses or limits to what the rest of the administration would be willing to do were becoming noticeable. A Grand Rally at Luneta Park was supposed to rival the 1.5 million People Power movement that ousted Marcos’s father in 1987. But the Manila Police District estimated crowd attendance from 3,000 at 4 p.m. to 215,000 at its height

It soon became indisputable that Evasco's ambitious plans were in ruins and that the victor was Go. By November 7, 2018, Evasco was well and truly done. The remnants of his administrative empire were abolished at that time. Go was the last man standing. From time to time we saw the ghosts of Evasco's political project in schemes dusted off then almost as quickly forgotten again.

The legacy of the struggle between Evasco and Go was the direction the administration would take – which had consequences increasingly felt as the term wound down. The attempt to create a mass ideological movement, and infiltrate, reorganize, and radicalize the bureaucracy to create a self-perpetuating ruling party was opposed by pragmatists represented by Go who was insistent on each faction keeping their current perks and future options open.

The radicals lost but the pragmatists were left to confront the problem every previous ruling coalition has faced, which is that its authority and influence had a fixed expiration date.

Duterte’s inability to leverage his popularity into an organized opposition to Marcos began not in his post-presidency, but during his incumbency. He preferred the tactical approach of Go to the strategic one of Evasco. He didn’t put in place an independent infrastructure and network that could endure. So, when Go found himself on the defensive in the Senate, Duterte’s calling on Evasco wasn’t useful because Evasco lacked the means to muster a meaningful mobilization. The once-formidable Rodrigo Duterte charisma and clout have been evaporating; he pulled out all the stops, only to be neutralized —or worse, ignored— at every turn.

Manuel L. Quezon III is a Filipino writer, former television host, and a grandson of former Philippine president Manuel L. Quezon