SARA DUTERTE DOES NOT HAVE THE ASCENDANCY TO DEMAND MARCOS’ RESIGNATION

Let me preamble this piece by saying I have never been a Marcos supporter. As such, nothing in this piece should be mistaken for a defense of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. My view of Marcos has not softened just because Sara Duterte now wants him out of Malacañang.

The Marcos name still comes with dictatorship, corruption and historical revisionism. I have not forgotten any of that, and I still reject Sara Duterte’s attempt to speak as though her call for Marcos to resign already speaks for the country.

That is where I have a problem with what happened in Quezon City recently.

SARA’S DEMAND AND THE CROWD AROUND HER

Sara Duterte stood outside Quezon City Hall after her arraignment in the grave-threats case was deferred and called on Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resign.

She accused him of lying, abuse, corruption and ingratitude, then urged her supporters to keep calling for him to leave office.

As usual, the speech was made for clips, and the clips came quickly. A speech going viral is still very different from a country deciding that its president should go.

The gathering was tied to Sara’s scheduled court appearance, and the Inday Sara Na Movement Philippines had said around 300 members from different parts of the country were expected to show up and support her. Those people had every right to be there, defend her and demand Marcos’ resignation.

But they were already Sara Duterte supporters, so their presence tells us something about the loyalty of her base, not what Filipinos outside that base have decided. A few hundred people can also look much bigger once vloggers, livestreams, partisan pages and supporters keep reposting the same clips.

That still does not turn them into “the country.”

POLITICAL POWER IS NOT POLITICAL ASCENDANCY

Sure, Sara Duterte has political power. She has the Duterte surname, a national office, loyal supporters, political machinery and an online following that can make almost anything she says spread fast.

Political ascendancy is different. It shows when a politician can reach people outside the loyal base and convince Filipinos who have no reason to defend her in the first place.

Sara has never shown that kind of reach. She has people who will rally for her, defend her online and see many of the cases against her as political attacks, but I have not seen the wider support needed to claim that the country wants Marcos out so she can take over.

A vice president cannot point to a friendly crowd outside a courthouse and act as though the Filipino people have already spoken. She still has to convince people who were never Duterte supporters, including Filipinos who distrust Marcos but have serious doubts about her too.

THE VLOGGER MACHINE

Almost every confrontation around Sara becomes lucrative content.

A court appearance becomes a livestream, an insult becomes a clip, an accusation becomes a reaction video, and the same words travel through page after page until they look much bigger than the event that produced them.

Some of these people are commentators. Others have built an audience around keeping supporters angry enough to stay, react, share and come back tomorrow.

A phone points at Sara, somebody cuts the clip, somebody adds a dramatic title and another page reposts it. After enough repetition, the people who helped create the noise start using that same noise as proof that the country agrees with them.

I do not buy that garbage.

Public opinion is bigger than one political feed. Filipinos who never watch Duterte vloggers, never attend Duterte rallies and do not follow partisan pages are part of this country too.

If Sara wants people outside her own camp to believe her, then give them something stronger than livestreams and angry clips. Documents, witnesses, policies and facts will always tell me more than another video with thousands of reactions.

HER PLASTIC NATIONALISM

Sara Duterte talks a lot about sovereignty, independence and foreign interference, but the way she uses those ideas has become hard to take seriously. Too often, her nationalism becomes loudest when a Duterte needs defending.

When Rodrigo Duterte faced international legal proceedings, Sara turned his situation into a question of Philippine sovereignty. Defending her father’s rights is understandable, but wrapping the family’s legal problems in the Philippine flag is something else.

The Duterte family is not the Philippines. Their legal problems are not automatically national emergencies, and sovereignty should mean more than protecting a powerful surname.

It should include Filipino territory, fishermen, workers, public institutions and public money. The same concern should be there when Filipinos themselves are the ones being pushed around.

Sara has been very willing to attack the Philippines’ ties with the United States and warn against dependence on Washington. That criticism can be fair because the Philippines should never behave like an American extension in Asia.

Filipinos have also watched Chinese ships block and harass Philippine vessels while Beijing keeps challenging our rights in the West Philippine Sea. A politician who repeatedly lectures the country about sovereignty should have the same fire when Filipino interests are being challenged there.

Sara’s nationalism often looks selective and convenient. The principle seems to change depending on who is involved and whether the issue helps the Duterte camp politically.

That is what makes it look fake to me.

Patriotism should not be something politicians pull out when they need protection, sympathy or another weapon against an opponent.

When sovereignty suddenly becomes urgent whenever the Duterte family needs it, the speeches start sounding self-serving.

ACCOUNTABILITY ALSO APPLIES TO SARA

Sara attacks Marcos over corruption, and she is free to do that. The problem is that once she starts using corruption against another politician, Filipinos are also entitled to ask about public money handled by offices she led.

The impeachment allegations against her have included misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth, bribery and grave threats. Sara has denied wrongdoing and has every right to challenge the accusations, question the evidence and defend herself.

That right does not make the questions disappear. The Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education handled confidential funds that have been examined by state auditors and lawmakers, and Filipinos who paid that money have every right to ask where it went and whether the rules were followed.

This is where the “PROTECT VP SARA” movement becomes especially irritating.

One banner places “PROTECT VP SARA” beside “PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION” and “PROTECT THE FILIPINOS,” and I find that pairing almost offensive because it puts protecting one politician beside protecting the country itself.

Sara Duterte is not the Constitution, and she is not the Filipino people.

Evidence that was fabricated should be exposed, while any violation of her rights should be challenged in court and answered by the people responsible.

But do not tell Filipinos that protecting Sara means protecting the Constitution while questions about taxpayers’ money are still being asked.

When hundreds of millions of pesos in public funds are being questioned, my first concern is finding out what happened to the money, not protecting the politician.

Think about where the opposite idea takes us.

A mayor faces audit findings and supporters demand protection, then a governor is questioned over spending and supporters call the investigation persecution.

Keep going and pretty soon every powerful politician gets a personal protection movement while the taxpayer is expected to shut up and wait. That is exactly the kind of political culture we should be trying to get rid of.

Sara’s supporters are free to believe she is innocent, but they should still want the questions answered.

Innocence is stronger when the evidence holds up than when supporters try to shut down the questioning itself.

Evidence that clears her should clear her, and accusations that cannot be proven should fail. If wrongdoing is proven through the proper process, political popularity should not erase the consequences.

SARA WOULD BECOME PRESIDENT

There is another fact that cannot be separated from her demand for Marcos to resign. If Marcos resigns, Sara Duterte becomes president.

Article VII, Section 8 of the 1987 Constitution says the vice president becomes president when the presidency becomes vacant because of death, permanent disability, removal or resignation.

Sara is the constitutional successor, so the outcome she is asking for would immediately put her in Malacañang without another presidential election.

Her criticism of Marcos may still be valid, and she may have real reasons to attack his government. But she is not watching this fight from the sidelines because the office goes to her if Marcos leaves.

That should make Filipinos ask for stronger evidence before treating her resignation call as anything close to a national demand.

Anger, insults and a friendly crowd outside a courthouse are nowhere near enough.

If Sara believes Marcos committed crimes, she should show the evidence. If she believes he committed impeachable offenses, then identify them and back them with documents, witnesses and facts that Filipinos can examine beyond speeches and viral clips.

HER 32.2 MILLION VOTES

The contradiction becomes harder to ignore when Sara talks about her own mandate.

In July, she said she would never resign because leaving office would betray the 32.2 million Filipinos who voted for her, arguing that voters placed her in office and she has a duty to stay.

Marcos was elected too. Sara won the vice-presidential race with more votes, but Marcos won a separate presidential election, and her larger total does not place the vice-presidential mandate above the presidency.

Winning an election does not protect any official forever. Presidents can be impeached, officials can face legal cases, and enough public anger can push a leader to resign.

But Sara cannot point to her voters whenever people talk about removing her, then act as though Marcos’ own voters suddenly count for very little when she wants him gone. The presidency is not some prize waiting for the vice president after an alliance between two families falls apart.

If Sara wants Marcos removed through constitutional means, she can organize an opposition, convince Filipinos and present evidence. She can also run for president in 2028 and ask Filipinos directly to give her the job.

What she cannot do is treat a loyal base, a courthouse crowd and a flood of online content as proof that the country has already handed her that authority.

ONE DYNASTY IS NOT THE ANSWER TO ANOTHER

The Philippines does not need Marcos loyalists pretending the Marcos name has somehow been cleaned of its history. Duterte loyalists do not get to turn Sara into the automatic answer to everything wrong with Marcos either.

Both families have benefited from famous surnames, political machinery and voters being asked to trust bloodline as though it were a qualification. They even sold themselves together in 2022 under UniTeam.

UniTeam promised unity, and four years later the alliance has become open warfare between the same two families that asked Filipinos to trust them together. That alone should make people more careful about being dragged into their feud.

Disappointment with Marcos does not automatically make Sara the answer. Filipinos are allowed to look at both families, examine their records and decide neither one deserves blind loyalty.

Marcos should answer for his failures and for accusations properly tied to his government. Sara should answer for her own record, including the serious questions involving money handled by offices she led.

Neither family should get a free pass because of its surname.

Sara can oppose Marcos, criticize him and try to convince Filipinos that he should leave office. She can build a national movement if enough people believe her, but she has not built one simply because a few hundred supporters gathered outside a courthouse or because vloggers can make the same clip appear everywhere.

That is political noise from a loyal base, not proof that the country has decided Marcos should resign and Sara should replace him.

Until Sara can convince Filipinos far beyond her own camp and present a case strong enough to hold up under questioning, her call for Marcos to resign belongs to her and the people already behind her.

It is not a national mandate.