Duterte returns as Philippines’ political clans wage ‘a fight to the death’

A foul-mouthed former Philippine president who jailed political rivals, insulted the pope and claims to have hired “death squad” gangsters is running for re-election in his hometown in a desperate bid to strengthen his scandal-hit political dynasty.

Labeled “Asia’s Trump” by some commentators due to his unorthodox leadership style and bombastic rhetoric, Rodrigo Duterte is aiming for a perhaps even more unlikely political comeback than Donald Trump’s seismic return to the White House.

Duterte, 79, wants to return as mayor of Davao City, on the southern island of Mindanao, where he held power for more than two decades before leading the archipelago nation between 2016 and 2022.

His return to politics is about more than a personal quest for power, analysts say – it’s an attempt to shore up support for his family against the Philippines’ other famed political dynasty – the Marcoses, who have an opposing vision for the country, particularly its relationships with the United States and China.

In a political culture dominated by clan-based alliances, the Marcoses and the Dutertes made a vow of unity when Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, ran for vice president alongside Ferdinand Marcos Jr. – son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who died in exile in 1989 after a brutal 21-year reign.

The duo won a landslide victory in 2022, but not even halfway through their term the alliance is disintegrating as Duterte-Carpio faces calls for her impeachment for alleged corruption, which she denies.

The Marcos-Duterte fallout has since descended into public tirades and name-calling – a hallmark of Rodrigo Duterte’s years as a straight-talking, filter-free president.

Richard Heydarian, senior lecturer at the Asian Center of the University of the Philippines, says the older Duterte has entered the political maelstrom to bolster his family’s defenses as they fight battles on several fronts.

“The Dutertes are at their most vulnerable moment in almost a decade,” he said.

Death squads and a war on drugs

Duterte soared to power on a promise to replicate on a national scale his anti-crime crackdown in the family’s stronghold of Davao, winning the 2016 presidential election in a landslide.

In the years that followed, more than 6,000 people were killed in his war on drugs, according to police data, though independent monitors believe the number of extrajudicial killings could be much higher.

Many of the victims were young men from impoverished shanty towns, shot by police and rogue gunmen as part of a campaign to target dealers.

The bloodshed prompted an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and a monthslong House of Representatives inquiry, as well as a separate Senate inquiry led by the cousin of the current president.

In a House hearing Wednesday, Duterte declared that he was finally ready to face the ICC, even urging prosecutors to “hurry up” and “start the investigation tomorrow.” In typically combative fashion, however, he also told the 12-hour long hearing that he would kick any ICC investigators who came to the Philippines to face him.

Duterte’s fighting talk comes after the former president made a stark admission to the Senate inquiry last month during his first public appearance in the investigations.

Before an audience of millions watching on television and online, Duterte told lawmakers he hired a “death squad” of gangsters to kill criminals while mayor of Davao City, 600 miles (965 kilometers) from the capital Manila.

“I can make the confession now if you want,” Duterte said. “I had a death squad of seven, but they were not police, they were gangsters.”

But in the same hearing, Duterte distanced himself from claims he directly ordered his national police chiefs to carry out extrajudicial killings during his time as president. He also said he told police officers to “encourage” suspects to fight back, as legal cover for the killings.

Duterte’s attempts to fend off criticism come as his daughter fights calls for her impeachment over claims she misappropriated funds from both the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.

Lawmakers in September deferred the approval of budgets to her office as allied political clans at odds with the Dutertes demanded more transparency and accountability over her public spending.

Heydarian, the analyst, said Duterte’s decision to run for Davao mayor marks an attempt to keep the family politically relevant, and is likely an acknowledgment that he may not have what it takes to run for a seat in the national legislature.

His return to Davao may also serve to support his sons – incumbent Davao mayor Sebastian Duterte and congressman Paolo Duterte – who are contesting the Davao election but are viewed as “out of touch” with locals, Heydarian said.

“It’s always foolish to underestimate the Dutertes given their almost fanatical base in certain parts of the country, but I think it would also not be foolish to think that the Dutertes are also now facing an existential crisis,” Heydarian said.

From unity to animosity

The Marcos-Duterte alliance was always an unlikely one. But major cracks appeared in January, when Rodrigo Duterte called Marcos a “drug addict” and threatened that the president could be removed from power.

Months later, Vice President Duterte-Carpio resigned as education secretary, a departure seen by analysts as a sign that the relationship between the country’s top leaders was beyond repair.

In October, Duterte-Carpio aired a litany of grievances against the president in a two-hour livestreamed press conference, saying she “wanted to chop his head off.” She said the Marcoses “used her” to propel themselves to victory in the 2022 election.

At one point, Duterte-Carpio spoke about Ferdinand Marcos Sr. – the late patriarch and longtime dictator. She said she had become so incensed by the attacks on her that she wanted to dig up his body and “throw it in the West Philippine Sea.”

Despite this, Duterte-Carpio told reporters she does not regret running for vice president under Marcos. “They can drag me to hell,” she said. “And when they get there, I will be the president of hell.”

Marcos insisted he thought he and the vice president were friends.

“I always thought that we were,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an Association of Southeast Asian Nations conference in September. “But maybe I was deceived.”

His son, Sandro Marcos, entered the fray, saying in a rare statement that he “cannot remain silent” as the vice president “threatens to exhume a former president and behead an incumbent one.”

At the heart of the feud is geopolitics, specifically how the Philippines should balance its relationships with China and the US, according to Ranjit Singh Rye, an assistant professor of political science at the University of the Philippines.

The incumbent Marcos administration has leaned more closely toward Washington – the Philippines’ oldest and closest ally – particularly strengthening its military alliance, in a move that reverses Duterte’s pro-Beijing tilt for investment in infrastructure.

Cozying up to China is believed to have led to the nefarious proliferation of the gambling and online scams industry, with alleged links to Chinese organized crime, under Duterte’s administration.

The leaders’ split views on the Philippines’ geopolitical standing ultimately divided the Marcos-Duterte alliance, according to Rye.

“The differences are irreconcilable because they both represent a different vision of where the Philippines needs to go and how the Philippines needs to be governed,” Rye said.

Home turf survival

When Duterte filed his candidacy in Davao, he was met by a roaring crowd of supporters. “I want to serve you. Davao is better than yesterday,” he told reporters, implying its current progress was due to his past iron grip.

The midterm elections are not until May 2025 but politicking and campaigning in the Philippines starts punishingly early, and thousands of local posts are up for grabs across the country of just under 120 million people, from district councilors and mayors to lawmakers.

Cleve Arguelles, a political scientist and head of polling firm WR Numero, said the outcome could shape the political landscape for years to come.

In Davao, five members of the once-mighty Duterte clan are facing off with familiar rivals.

Along with Sebastian, who will be his father’s running mate, Rodrigo’s eldest son Paolo is seeking re-election to Congress and two of Paolo’s sons are running for other local seats. Political pundits are saying that at least one Duterte may make a bid for the presidency in 2028.

“The Dutertes are not just joining this race as regular players. This is a fight to the death. This is for their political survival,” Arguelles said.

The Dutertes’ biggest challenger in Davao is the Nograles clan, reigniting a decades-old family rivalry.

The late Prospero Nograles remains the only person from Mindanao to have served as the nation’s House speaker. Though he only held the role for two years until 2010, the patriarch of the Nograles family built formidable ties with influential lawmakers and entrenched political elites across a decades-long career in local and national politics.

Now, the next generation of Nograles politicians is running against the Dutertes in their shared hometown.

Karlo Nograles is running against Rodrigo Duterte for the mayoralty while his sister, Margarita, a lawyer and rising TikTok influencer, is challenging Paolo.

Karlo Nograles has said people in Davao “deserve a chance to have real, meaningful and lasting change” – a message that could sway a portion of voters, Arguelles said.

“If the Dutertes lose the ballot in their home turf, it’s a sign that they have not been able to defend themselves from attacks on several fronts,” Arguelles said.

A lingering problem for the Dutertes is their relationship with Pastor Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, a self-styled “appointed son of God” and founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church, who is wanted by the FBI for alleged sex trafficking.

Quiboloy is a close supporter and spiritual adviser of Rodrigo Duterte, who regularly appeared on a church-linked media network when he was mayor of Davao and was accused by lawmakers of concealing Quiboloy’s whereabouts.

The church leader was arrested in September after a weeks-long standoff involving nearly 2,000 officers who surrounded a sprawling church compound just outside Davao International Airport – a massive operation for which Marcos took credit.

Despite all the controversies and alleged links to extrajudicial killings and suspected criminals, Duterte has told Davao voters that a vote for him is a vote for order.