Right from the start, it was obvious that the Marcos Jr and Sara Duterte’s “Uniteam” was all about a unity of convenience—characteristic of the elite-dominated politics and a corrupt and bankrupt electoral system. By now, the public knows that their “unity” (for whatever to get votes) was a product of transactional politics, of wheeling and dealing, to ensure victory and subsequently protect the interests of each of their dynasties, both representing the corrupt and felonious ruling classes.
For Marcos Jr, the goal is to fully rehabilitate his ousted dictator father’s public image and perpetuate the Marcos brand of politics and governance—brutality and chicanery, theft and corruption. And, like his father, he is out to monopolize power, too. Separately, Marcos Sr’s crude copycat former president Rodrigo Duterte aspires to get his daughter Sara to become president immediately after Marcos Jr to regain his previous hold in power. Through Sara, the older Duterte hopes he could maintain his economic interests and criminal operations, and his influence in the military. Sara is also Duterte’s protection against any move from Marcos Jr that would lead to his prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Standing on a sham unity and considering their own agenda, Marcos Jr, naturally has been wary of Sara Duterte and considers her a threat. Marcos Jr denied Sara of the vital defense post much to Sara’s chagrin that she continues to froth at the mouth with rage to this day.
In less than two years after their highly questionable win, the conflict between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties has intensified. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in a statement issued in September 15, 2024 said, “The façade of unity, however, crumbled just after a year because the greed for wealth and power of both sides is boundless and cannot be equally satisfied amid the crisis of the ruling system and the decreasing resources for sharing.”
Read: Gloves off in Marcos-Duterte Circus
Recently, Marcos Jr has allowed his minions in Congress to investigate Sara Duterte’s misuse of “intelligence funds” and Duterte’s “war against drugs” via the Lower House’s quad-committee which includes political turncoats who hailed and supported Duterte while he was president. It remains to be seen though if this Marcos Jr show off will eventually lead to the arrest and trial of Duterte before the ICC (or will Marcos just keep off for fear of suffering the same. Afterall, he and Duterte are two peas in a pod). When and if it happens, the Duterte clique will definitely not take it sitting down. The Duterte dynasty will gather and mobilize what remains of their political and economic resources to defend their interests. It will be recalled that as early as the second half of 2023, rumors of destabilization plots circulated and calls for Marcos Jr’s resignation were heard during Duterte-sponsored rallies.
Kadiliman vs Kasamaan?
When the conflict between Marcos Jr and Sara escalated and became apparent to the public, social media had been abuzz with memes and jokes, letting netizens choose between kadiliman (darkness, gloom) and kasamaan (evil), a follow-up from shiminet and shuminghot. Though people laughed at this, it also speaks of the sick state of Philippine politics where the choice has been, for decades, limited to the rotating political families who reign the country; that once temporarily out of power, the other dynasty assumes the role of the “opposition” despite their likeness of being. Both Marcos and Duterte are bureaucrat capitalists, representing both kadiliman and kasamaan of the rotten semifeudal, semicolonial system.
By now, Duterte’s so-called drug war and its thousands of victims and the expanse of his connections with “POGO” operations and other syndicates have been confirmed in the hearings by both houses of Congress. The CPP, in the same September 15 statement wrote, “… Duterte’s so-called drug war was a sham and that his anti-drug rhetoric was a hoax to establish himself as the drug megalord.”
Clearly, Duterte as bureaucrat capitalist used his political power to expand his criminal syndicate with his Chinese connections. He used the police and military not only to protect his drug trade and other criminal activities but also to suppress and even kill his competitors and political opponents, including members of the revolutionary movement. During the Duterte regime, the POGO hubs gained legitimacy through government contracts. Some of the personalities associated with these hubs and drug trade were given top positions, even as high as presidential advisers like Michael Yang.
Duterte typifies one of bureaucrat capitalism’s features—the involvement of those in power in criminal activities such as smuggling, drug trade, gambling, kidnapping for ransom, bank robbery, prostitution, gun-for-hire and a host of anti-social activities—either directly or as protectors or both. But Duterte’s “war against drugs” is just one among the many crimes he committed against the Filipino people and the revolutionary movement.While in power, Duterte militarized the civilian bureaucracy, weaponized the laws, and criminalized dissent.
Read: Corruption, puppetry and fascism of the Duterte-led bureaucrat capitalists were exposed
Read: Lest we forget: Duterte crimes vs. the Filipino people (Part 1)
Read: Duterte as butcher in-chief must pay for IHL violations
Ridiculous at it seems, Rodrigo Duterte’s brazenness and Sara’s bratty ways have made Marcos Jr look like a statesman. But while trying to distance himself away from the Dutertes by claiming his “drug war” is “bloodless”, the CPP argued that according to its news monitor, “the number of people being killed by police and vigilantes continues to rise…”
On March 21, 2024, a news article “Under Marcos,the Philippines drug war drags on said, “from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, multisectoral group Dahas, a Project of the University of the Philippines’ Third World Studies Center has recorded 342 drug casualties or an average rate of 0.9 deaths per day, a tad higher than the 0.8 daily average during Duterte’s last year in office.” As of October 31, the number rose to 827 (https://dahas.upd.edu.ph/sources/).
There was only a shift from Duterte’s men to Marcos Jr’s, from China-based drug syndicate to the US-Mexico Sinaloa drug cartel according to the CPP, adding that the trade goes through the Clark Air Base, which was a US military base.
Without pretensions, Marcos Jr is an all-out puppet of US imperialism. Marcos Jr immediately earned the political and economic support of the US when he approved the expansion and increase of US military bases in the country, under the guise of protecting the country from China’s economic and military agenda in the Asia-Pacific region. Marcos also cancelled contracts for infrastructure projects granted by the Duterte regime to China, a source of Duterte’s huge amounts of tongpats (kickbacks). For this, Marcos was promised support by the Japanese Import-Export Bank and World Bank, which could be his own source of big bucks.
Like Rodrigo and Sara Duterte, Marcos Jr is not free from corruption cases. Least of all. Aside from the unreturned billions of stolen money by his family, Marcos Jr now controls billions of pesos of confidential and intelligence funds and unprogrammed funds which is essentially audit-free. He has the Maharlika Investment Funds (MIF) to dip his hands on. He is a jet-setter, a party animal who spends hundreds of millions of people’s money to sustain his and his family’s lavish lifestyle in complete disregard of people’s welfare. Marcos friends and cronies such as Ramon Ang, Enrique Razon, the Villars—all big bourgeois compradors and big landlords who are also bureaucrat themselves are favored by Marcos for which they are able to expand their economic empires as they get most of government contracts. Of course, not for nothing. (Iliya Makalipay) ###
Read: In Puppetry, US-Marcos Jr shaping up worse than US-Duterte
