Has Philippine President Marcos ‘outmanoeuvred’ the Dutertes in the impeachment battle?

The impeachment of Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio by more than two-thirds of the Philippine House of Representatives – including lawmakers from her family’s southern stronghold of Mindanao – has signalled to analysts that President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr and his allies have “outmanoeuvred” the Duterte dynasty in its own backyard.

Out of the 60 congressmen representing the southern Philippines, 41 have signed the Articles of Impeachment that were sent to the Senate on Wednesday, according to the Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism.

One signatory is from the Davao region, where the vice-president’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, reigned supreme for more than three decades.

“It’s political jujitsu,” said historian Manolo Quezon, a former palace insider under presidents Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III.

In the 2022 elections, Marcos Jnr and Duterte-Carpio campaigned together as a unified ticket and secured landslide victories. However, the alliance between them and their politically powerful families has transformed into a bitter public feud over the last year, with the vice-president even making public threats of assassination.

Despite that, Marcos Jnr had consistently described the effort to impeach the vice-president as an unnecessary government distraction before Wednesday’s vote, describing it as a “storm in a teacup” amid growing calls among his allies to oust her from office.

  

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