The Mirage of Unity: Marcos, Duterte, and the Fractured Promise of Continuity

The Mirage of Unity: Marcos, Duterte, 

and the Fractured Promise of Continuity

When Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. ascended to the presidency in 2022, his first and greatest pledge to the people was not a program of reform, not a plan of reconstruction, not a break with the injustices of the past. It was a vow to freeze the past in place.

“We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Duterte made,

and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Duterte gave.”

This phrase was not improvised; it was a line tempered and polished in the forges of campaign calculation. It was uttered by ministers and surrogates as if it were scripture, a declaration so unambiguous that even the dullest political operative could repeat it without error.

It was, in essence, an insurance policy. For Duterte’s loyalists in the police, the military, the bureaucracy, and in Congress, it guaranteed immunity: there would be no reckoning for the dead of the drug war, no scrutiny of contracts signed in haste or in darkness, no dismantling of the machinery of coercion built over six years. For the inner circle of Duterte’s rule, it promised that the hand of the state would remain their shield.

This was the cunning of the slogan: in a country where each administration traditionally tramples the legacy of its predecessor, “continuity” was dressed up as the highest virtue. It was sold as stability — no sudden changes in foreign policy, no interruption of the so-called “war on drugs,” no pause in the cement and steel of Duterte-era infrastructure.

But in its very construction, the slogan carried its fatal flaw. It rested on the assumption that unity could be manufactured not through the people’s will, not through democratic consensus, but through the embalming of a single leader’s choices. It mistook the political corpse of the previous administration for the living body of the nation.

And history does not lie still. To attempt to halt it is to invite rupture. The Marcos camp imagined they had built a bridge to the future; in truth, they had built a dam, and behind it the waters of change were already rising.

Foreign Policy: From Apparent Inheritance

to Complete Reorientation

In the early years of his presidency, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. appeared poised to carry forward Duterte’s pro-China tilt. Yet within months, he unveiled a decisive pivot that reversed several pillars of his predecessor’s foreign policy—particularly in defense and alliance-building.

• EDCA Expansion: Four New Bases Added

Marcos approved four new Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites in April 2023, supplementing the original five bases agreed in 2016. The new locations—Balabac Island (Palawan), Camp Melchor Dela Cruz (Isabela), Lal-lo Airport (Cagayan), and Naval Base Camilo Osias (Santa Ana, Cagayan)—significantly enhanced U.S. access across northern Luzon and the western flank of the Philippines.

• Joint Military Exercises Surge

The annual Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) exercises under Marcos swelled dramatically—from roughly 5,100 U.S. and 3,800 Filipino troops in 2022, to over 17,600 participants in 2023, including contingents from Japan and Australia. Moreover, Marcos elevated the total joint exercises from approximately 300 in 2022 to 500 in 2023.

• “Full Battle Test” Drills and Missile Deployments

By April 2025, Balikatan evolved into its first “full battle test”—complete with simulated missile strikes, island-defence war games, and operations in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. This included deploying U.S. anti-ship missiles in the Luzon Strait and integrating Japanese and Australian forces for the first time in live drills.

• Deepening Security Agreements 

Marcos also revisited long-standing defense frameworks. In 2023, he endorsed updates to the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, ensuring non-military provocations (e.g., attacks on Philippine Coast Guard vessels) would still trigger U.S. defense commitments. Additionally, the U.S. and the Philippines signed the General Security of Military Information Agreement, enabling secure intelligence sharing and arms cooperation—covering missile systems and satellite surveillance—highlighting the growing sophistication of their military partnership.

This reorientation marked a clear break from Duterte’s era of strategic balancing. While Duterte downplayed the 2016 arbitral ruling and favored closer ties with Beijing, Marcos:

• Reinvigorated U.S. military presence via EDCA expansion;
• Multiplied joint military exercises—both in scale and complexity;
• Activated “full battle test” drills to stress-test operational readiness;
• Enhanced intelligence-sharing frameworks and treaty protections. 

For Duterte loyalists, Marcos’s moves appeared to violate the early pledge to “uphold whatever policy decisions Duterte made.” For critics, they demonstrated that blanket “continuity” was impossible in a rapidly changing geopolitical environment.

Even in the economy,  Marcos himself had to continue vassalage towards the United States, such as recently when President Donald Trump said he and Marcos Jr. of the Philippines have reached a trade agreement: that calls for 19% tariffs on goods the US imports from the two countries, paid by American businesses, while American goods shipped there won’t be charged a tariff. But come to think- while increasing tariffs on Philippine exports from 17 to 19 percent, Marcos disingenuously foisted on the Filipino people as a “significant achievement” in bilateral relations with the country’s “strongest, closest, most reliable ally.” What does this mean? turning the Philippines into a “dumping ground” for American products, as in exchange for the one percent point reduction on the tariffs for Philippine products entering the US, while some US products that will be exported to the Philippines will have zero tariffs?

So much for that ironclad relationship that's obviously a vassalage, like how Duterte tried to the Chinese while maintaining existing agreements with the Americans. Duterte's pivot to China is all but vassalage using unequal agreements. Otherwise, his foreign policy is an apathetic one: don't interfere with domestic matters (particularly human rights, war on drugs, among others of controversial nature) and stick to economic ones even it meant unequal and compradore in character. 

The Fracture of the Covenant:

From Pact to Political Civil War?

The Marcos–Duterte alliance, hailed in 2022 as the “Unity Ticket,” was never a genuine fusion of forces. It was a temporary truce between rival warlords of the political oligarchy, each commanding their own regional base, patronage network, and loyal bureaucracy. Its sole unifying aim was victory in the presidential race and the mutual guarantee of survival afterward.

From the first day of the new administration, the seeds of rupture were already sown. Marcos, backed by the northern and Ilocano machinery, occupied the apex of the state. Sara Duterte, commanding the southern Mindanao base and the loyalty of much of the national police and key military figures, stood as the indispensable junior partner. But the logic of Philippine politics is ruthless: once the prize is secured, the allies of yesterday become the obstacles of tomorrow.

By mid-2024, the split was no longer theoretical. The spark came with Vice President Sara Duterte’s resignation from her cabinet positions, delivered under the antiseptic phrase “differences in governance priorities.” It was, in truth, a declaration of political independence—an unmistakable refusal to be bound by the President’s authority.

From there, the façade collapsed with remarkable speed:

• Legislative paralysis — Coordination between the two camps in Congress disintegrated. Committees stalled; bills died without a vote; joint priorities vanished from the agenda.
• Fragmented party machinery — Operatives loyal to each camp blocked the projects of the other, diverted funds, and used local offices to undermine rival initiatives.
• Information warfare — Social media surrogates, once united in chorus, now sang dueling anthems, trading accusations of betrayal, corruption, and incompetence.

By early 2025, the “Unity Ticket” had transformed into a cold civil war within the ruling bloc. Public sniping replaced private negotiation. The once-formidable campaign machine split into two rival electoral armies, each quietly forging alliances in anticipation of the next presidential contest.

The breach, far from healing with time, deepened into a structural schism. No longer a mere clash of personalities, it became a contest between two political dynasties for control over the commanding heights of the state. Each sought to seize the organs of security, the levers of budgetary power, and the loyalty of the local government network.

By the start of 2025, local party operatives aligned with either camp actively obstructed each other’s initiatives, while national legislation became mired in partisan obstruction. Grassroots organizers complained of mixed messaging and dwindling resources, even as social media surrogates amplified the feud daily. What began as a controlled rift escalated into a sustained political cold war.

The events of 2024–2025 have proven a lesson written countless times in the history of bourgeois politics: alliances forged for office cannot withstand the strain of governance. Without a common program, without shared principles, they dissolve at the first serious test, leaving behind not unity but mutual sabotage.

Here the mirage stands exposed: what was promised to the nation as stability was nothing more than a ceasefire between oligarchic clans—a ceasefire that ended the moment one side moved to consolidate power at the expense of the other. Today, both camps are entrenched, trading jabs in public forums while the “unity” brand of 2022 survives only as a cautionary tale in Philippine politics—a reminder that expediency in alliance is purchased at the cost of eventual mistrust and open warfare.

Rights, Freedoms, and the Continuation of Old Patterns

Civil society organizations noted that in several respects, the old order had not changed at all. Reports of attacks on activists, harassment of journalists, and pressure on independent institutions persisted well into the early months of Marcos’s term, echoing the Duterte era’s hardline law-and-order ethos. For many, the atmosphere felt less like a fresh start and more like an unbroken continuum of repression.

During his campaign and in early statements as president, Marcos had said he would “uphold whatever policy decisions Duterte made,” a remark that—while intended by his team as a gesture of continuity—landed heavily with human rights advocates. To victims’ families and survivors of past abuses, it was not a reassurance but a warning: that the same culture of impunity that flourished under Duterte would remain untouched under his successor.

Advocacy groups pointed out that without accountability for extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and the intimidation of political dissenters, no amount of rhetorical unity could close the nation’s wounds. The past was not just lingering—it was being normalized. “We are being told to move on,” one rights worker said, “but the killings, the harassment, the fear—these are not things you just move on from.”

Observers also noted a subtle but significant difference in style. Unlike Duterte, whose bluntness and public tirades left no doubt about his stance, Marcos adopted a softer, more calculated tone. He downplayed the controversial legacy of his predecessor while signaling no intention of reversing it. The promise to maintain “whatever” Duterte had put in place became a political balancing act—appeasing the former president’s base while avoiding overt rhetoric that might alienate foreign allies or revive scrutiny of ongoing International Criminal Court (ICC) investigations.

That balancing act, however, did not change the underlying reality. For victims’ families, the ICC’s move to arrest and prosecute Duterte for alleged crimes against humanity was a rare glimmer of justice in an otherwise stagnant field. Yet even here, Marcos’s cautious language and deliberate avoidance of confronting the ICC matter head-on raised doubts about whether his administration would cooperate—or whether it would quietly shield Duterte under the banner of national sovereignty.

In the eyes of critics, the issue of human rights in the Philippines had not entered a new chapter at all. Rather, it was a continuation of the same script, with a different lead actor. The vocabulary was gentler, the stagecraft more polished, but the machinery of state power—the one that could be used to silence, intimidate, and erase—remained firmly in place.

And so, as the months passed, many Filipinos wondered if the country had truly moved forward, or if it was simply learning to live with an unchanging truth: that promises of unity meant little without justice, and that “whatever” policy decisions of the past could also mean “whatever” consequences for those who dared to challenge them.

Corruption, Dynasty, and the Eclipse of Governance

Let the record stand: the promise of continuity quickly proved to be a smokescreen for the preservation—not the reform—of a political order suffocated by patronage, impunity, and dynastic ambition. Beneath the fine phrases about unity lay the real meaning of “continuity” in the Philippine context: the uninterrupted rule of entrenched families, the unbroken protection of corrupt allies, and the unchallenged operation of the state’s coercive machinery.

This was not stability in the service of the people. It was stability in the service of the ruling class.

• The Vice President on Trial — Literally 

By December 2024, the second highest office in the land was under siege. Vice President Sara Duterte faced a barrage of impeachment complaints, each more damning than the last: graft, misuse of confidential funds, betrayal of public trust, and even allegations of plotting the assassination of President Marcos Jr. What began as scattered grievances in the House of Representatives quickly gathered momentum, uniting lawmakers from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao in a rare, if temporary, alignment of political will.

By February 2025, this wave of accusations culminated in a formal impeachment vote in the House—a remarkable moment in Philippine politics where the legislative branch moved against a sitting vice president from the ruling coalition itself.

Yet the unity against Duterte was fleeting. Once the case reached the Senate, procedural delays—framed as adherence to due process—effectively froze the proceedings. This stalling was more than a calendar game; it was a calculation. The longer the trial was delayed, the greater the opportunity for backroom negotiation, media spin, and political realignment.

In July 2025, the Supreme Court delivered the decisive intervention, declaring the impeachment complaint unconstitutional. It was a legal reprieve that did not absolve Sara Duterte of wrongdoing, but it robbed the impeachment process of its teeth. In the public eye, she emerged not exonerated, but re-energized—proof that in a dynastic system, defeat in one arena often signals a counterattack in another.

• Rodrigo Duterte’s Arrest — and the Family’s Enduring Grip 

If the vice president’s survival was an example of elite impunity, her father’s continued influence was an even starker one. Former President Rodrigo Duterte, detained in The Hague under International Criminal Court charges for crimes against humanity, should have been politically finished. Instead, he used his detention as a political stage.

In the 2025 midterms, Duterte ran for—and won—the mayorship of Davao City from abroad. His son took the vice mayoralty, ensuring that the family’s control over their southern stronghold remained unbroken.

Nor was the Duterte network confined to Davao. In the Senate, loyalists like Christopher “Bong” Go and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa secured top positions, proving that the dynasty’s reach extended from the jail cells of The Hague to the legislative halls of Manila. Here, “continuity” revealed itself for what it was: not a commitment to policy, but a guarantee that power, once accumulated by a family, would not be surrendered—no matter the venue, no matter the charges.

• A Nation of Dynasties, Not a Democracy 

The 2025 elections made plain what political scientists had long warned: the Philippines remains less a representative democracy than a confederation of family fiefdoms. Of the 253 congressional districts, 216 were held by members of political dynasties. These clans rule like private kingdoms, passing seats from parent to child, sibling to sibling, cousin to cousin.

This reality makes constitutional prohibitions against dynasties not merely ineffective, but openly mocked. The ruling class sustains itself through the rotation of surnames, not the rotation of policies.

In 2024, the so-called People’s Initiative movement for constitutional change was exposed as yet another instrument of oligarchic engineering. Villagers were reportedly paid between ₱100 and ₱10,000 to sign petitions—petitions organized not by genuine grassroots advocates, but by political brokers with deep ties to both ruling camps. “Unity” here meant unity of method: whether in Marcos territory or Duterte country, the cash-for-signatures tactic was the same.

• Budget Battles as Political Theatre 

The 2025 national budget became a battlefield not for the allocation of resources, but for the performance of power. Civil society leaders labeled it “the most corrupt in history,” condemning cuts to health and education while pork and patronage projects flourished.

One flagship initiative, the “Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita” (AKAP) program, was ostensibly a social assistance scheme for low-income households. In practice, critics argued, it functioned as a vote-buying mechanism—its rollouts conveniently timed with political campaigns, its beneficiaries often selected through partisan channels. Lawmakers close to Speaker Martin Romualdez were accused of weaponizing AKAP to secure loyalty in local constituencies, proving that in the patronage state, even welfare is a political weapon.

• Structural Decay in Civic Space 

The same state that could mobilize billions for patronage aid was relentless in using its coercive apparatus against dissent. Since 2024, terrorism financing charges—often without credible basis—against civil society actors have skyrocketed from 14 to 66 cases. Human rights defenders were red-tagged; NGOs saw their bank accounts frozen.

Laws designed to combat terrorism were thus transformed into tools of political policing. In a grim irony, while the state struggled to dismantle criminal syndicates embedded in local governments, it showed ruthless efficiency in dismantling the capacity of activists and watchdog groups to operate.

Even public service delivery itself became hostage to the Marcos–Duterte feud. Political scientists warned that the distribution of cash aid and essential services was being weaponized by both camps to mobilize electoral support. In this climate, a citizen’s access to relief could depend less on need than on which faction’s colors flew in their barangay.

Under Marcos Jr., unity meant the preservation of the power structures of the past—shielding political families, shielding corrupt actors, and preserving coercive state mechanisms. It meant that dynastic immunity remained the operating principle of governance.

Yet the scandals of 2024–2025 show that continuity built on privilege is a lie. When the marionettes of “unity” begin to pull their strings in different directions, the façade collapses, and the machinery of shared domination is laid bare for all to see.

In such a system, reform is not a policy disagreement—it is an existential threat. And when unity is bought, enforced, and hereditary, the legitimacy of the state becomes a hollow echo, incapable of commanding true loyalty from the people.

The Collapse of the Continuity Myth

What began as a campaign promise of “continuity” and “unity” quickly unraveled into a political arrangement more concerned with preserving the legacy and power networks of the past than addressing the needs of the present. On paper, the incoming leadership vowed to maintain stability, honor previous achievements, and ensure a smooth transition. In practice, it became a tightrope act—appeasing entrenched allies while navigating a growing tide of public dissatisfaction.

The so-called unity project was never a cohesive vision. Instead, it was a patchwork of competing loyalties and backroom understandings, where policy direction was often dictated by what would keep fragile alliances intact. Reforms were watered down or shelved entirely if they risked upsetting key power brokers. “Continuity” became a coded assurance to the old guard: the same rules, the same privileges, the same protection from accountability.

This arrangement also demanded a peculiar kind of public messaging—carefully staged speeches, symbolic gestures, and a refusal to directly address glaring contradictions. When pressed about unresolved scandals or unmet promises, the answer was often reduced to the dismissive shrug of “whatever keeps the peace.” It was unity, but only in the shallow sense of everyone avoiding open conflict while quietly protecting their own interests.

Over time, the cost of this arrangement became clear. Economic inequities widened, corruption persisted, and the justice system remained selectively applied. The rhetoric of harmony masked a political stalemate, where decision-making was paralyzed by fear of alienating any faction of the old order.

The nation found itself trapped between two incompatible realities: the ceremonial performance of loyalty to a bygone administration, and the urgent demands of a public hungry for genuine change. By clinging to a corrupted version of unity, the administration not only risked alienating its own base—it steadily eroded the legitimacy of the state itself, undermining the very development, justice, and peace it claimed to champion.

Unity vs. Conformity

The early pledge to “unswervingly follow whatever instructions Duterte gave” presumed the political past could be simply frozen in place. Yet the messy realities of governance—volatile geopolitics, personal rivalries, mounting public discontent—made such a promise unattainable.

That collapse of the “continuity” narrative revealed a harsh lesson: unity isn’t something that can be declared or forced upon a fragmented political landscape. True unity demands accountability, tangible reforms, and inclusive politics—none of which were sufficiently embraced. What instead emerged was a veneer of unity that masked worsening institutional dysfunction and fractured public trust.

• Midterm Election Fallout and Cabinet Reshuffle 

The May 2025 midterm elections served as a stark referendum on the administration’s unity-by-continuity strategy. Support for Marcos’s slate plunged—his allies won only half of the contested Senate seats—while Vice President Sara Duterte’s camp surged, revealing deep political polarization and weakening the president’s mandate.

In response, Marcos ordered a sweeping reset: all cabinet secretaries and heads of agencies were asked to submit courtesy resignations. This “bold reset” aimed to realign governance with public expectations but also underscored the failure of cohesion and unity as effective governance tools.

• Outcry Over Corruption, Poverty, and Accountability

Growing frustrations over corruption and inequality also punctured the narrative of unity. Massive rallies in early 2025 called out high-profile abuses—such as Vice President Duterte’s P612 million confidential fund spending in just 11 days—highlighting popular outrage over the privileging of the few over citizens’ welfare. 

 

This matter involving the Vice President's misuse of Public Funds also brought recent calls for her impeachment by concerned legislators, that rather end "archived" by the solons who obviously wanted to junk the complaint "all in the name of rule of law" even at the expense of "accountability" and "transparency" as public servants. 

These protests illustrated that superficial unity—one that glosses over corruption—cannot withstand a public hunger for responsive and transparent governance.

• Strained Institutions and Exclusionary Symbolism 

Recent decisions further revealed how the administration treats unity more as optics than inclusivity. Executive Order 81 reorganized the National Security Council, notably excluding Vice President Duterte and past presidents—traditional positions intended to symbolize institutional checks and balance. Critics called it a centralizing move that may deepen political rifts rather than unify. 

 

Even patriotic gestures were criticized as performative—an echo of Marcos Sr.’s Martial Law-era symbolism, rather than a unifying future-building effort. But, it's also no different from Duterte's performativism too - but sans the braggadocio Marcos jr's predecessor did during his presidential term.

Conclusion: The Shattered Formula of 'Unity' as 'Continuity'

Again, the Marcos Jr. administration began with a message that, while never officially phrased in these exact words, could be distilled into a single, unambiguous formula:

“We will resolutely uphold whatever policy decisions Duterte made,
and unswervingly follow whatever instructions Duterte gave.”

This was the political shorthand of the early months — the concentrated essence of every statement, press briefing, and ceremonial handover. It was the reassurance offered to Duterte’s loyalists in the military, the police, the bureaucracy, and the provincial dynasties: there will be no reckoning, no reversal, no dismantling of what has been built.

But a formula of this kind, rooted not in a program for the people but in a pact between factions of the ruling class, contains the seeds of its own destruction. To “unswervingly follow” a predecessor’s line is possible only so long as doing so serves the ambitions of the incumbent. The moment the paths of the two dynasties diverge, the unity collapses into open rivalry — and the pledge, once repeated as political scripture, becomes a hollow memory.

The events of 2023 to 2025 have stripped away the pretence. The foreign policy reorientation toward the United States, the vice president’s resignation from cabinet posts, the impeachment battles, the budget wars, the street protests, and the entrenchment of dynasties all revealed what the “continuity” promise truly was: a temporary ceasefire between two camps, never a shared vision for the nation.

By the time the 2025 midterm elections dealt Marcos a stinging rebuke, the façade had already crumbled. Cabinet purges replaced consensus. Institutional centralization replaced power-sharing. Symbolic theatrics — anthems, pledges, slogans — replaced substantive reform. What was sold as unity had, in practice, served as a protective shell for entrenched political interests, now split into rival camps more concerned with each other’s destruction than with the country’s welfare.

This is why the distilled slogan stands today not as a testament to political stability, but as proof of the bankruptcy of unity-by-continuity. Without accountability, without dismantling the machinery of dynastic privilege, without a program that addresses the needs of the people rather than the preservation of elite networks, “continuity” can only mean the perpetuation of the past’s failures.

Thus, the early message — so simple, so confident — now reads as the epitaph of its own promise: a political mirage that, once touched by the heat of reality, dissolved to reveal the unchanging desert beneath.