Father knows best, indeed. Before Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte became the country’s president and vice president, Rodrigo Duterte had already expressed reservations about the partnership that would eventually become the UniTeam.
In 2021, Former President Rodrigo Duterte wanted his daughter to run for president, but Sara refused.
Since then, the former president has always made sure his reservations were known and has been vocal about Marcos being, according to him, “a weak leader.”
Sara, however, had something different in mind.
She left Hugpong ng Pagbabago to join Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (LAKAS-CMD), where she became the chairperson. The party then adopted Marcos Jr. as its presidential candidate.
Together, both political figures established what they called UniTeam, symbolizing yet another powerful alliance between two of the most influential political families.
The campaign started with the political polar opposites becoming a united faction, and in 2022, the tandem garnered an overwhelming amount of support, securing their positions as the country’s president and vice president.
For a while, it seemed as if Sara made the right call.
The reality, however, is that political alliances are not tested during campaigns, but when the power both parties are eyeing for becomes shared or, more accurately, monopolized.
In 2022, Sara stated that she and Marcos discussed her possibly taking the position of Secretary of National Defense before the election campaign.
But Marcos Jr. appointed her as secretary of the Department of Education, undeniably far from the office she initially expected to be in.
That was the first signs of a crack that soon grew deeper.
In May 2023, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, an experienced political operator and a figure closely associated with the Duterte camp, was abruptly removed as senior deputy speaker of the House of Representatives under House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Then, just two days later, Sara Duterte resigned from Lakas-CMD, citing “political toxicity” and “political power play” as reasons for her departure.
The progression was difficult to overlook.
Sara had once been the chairperson of Lakas-CMD, the same party through which the Marcos-Duterte alliance had been formally assembled.
Now, less than two years after helping bring that alliance to power, she was walking away from the party.
Then came the questions over the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education drew mounting scrutiny and public criticism toward Sara Duterte.
The controversy increasingly put her on the defensive, while President Marcos largely kept his distance.
As pressure on Sara Duterte mounted, former President Rodrigo Duterte increasingly turned his attacks toward the Marcos administration, turning friction within the ruling coalition into an open political confrontation as he questioned the administration that had once stood beside his daughter.
From the Duterte perspective, what followed could be seen as a betrayal of the alliance they had helped create: the Cabinet appointment that differed from the position Sara said had been discussed, the weakening of Duterte-aligned influence within Lakas-CMD and the House, the political isolation surrounding the confidential-funds controversy, and eventually the open confrontation between the Marcos and Duterte camps.
UniTeam did not need an outside enemy to break it.
Its greatest conflict came from within.
The snake that had once joined two political forces together eventually turned inward, bit its own tail, and began consuming itself.
Had Sara listened to her father, her troubles - and that of the country's - could have been avoided. The Philippines could not have been run by a leader accused of addiction.
When Rodrigo Duterte asked Sara not to trust Marcos, it wasn't just a father worried about his daughter. It was a father who knows what is good for the country.
(To be continued)
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