Duterte-Duterte 2022? Sara and Rodrigo’s Political Futures

Rodrigo Duterte’s time as Philippine president ends in just over a year, but his single six-year term in the country’s highest office could be the beginning of a Duterte political dynasty.

Duterte’s daughter, Davao Mayor Sara Duterte, is polling as the top choice for both president and vice president in the 2022 elections. Social media has also been rife with disinformation falsely stating Sara Duterte has announced her candidacy, while banners have begun appearing in major cities urging her to run.

Sara Duterte, for her part, has remained noncommittal, telling supporters she has no plans to run for president before 2034 and stating she is not like her father.

But the mood around her potential candidacy feels familiar. In 2015, Rodrigo Duterte – then the mayor of Davao himself – coyly denied persistent rumors that he was planning to run for president. Meanwhile, an online disinformation machine kicked into high gear to prop up Duterte and denigrate his political rivals. Duterte eventually made a late entry into the race and went on to win convincingly.

The president, 75, remains popular among Filipinos despite his struggles to contain the country’s coronavirus pandemic and restart its struggling economy, along with persistent international criticism of his deadly drug war and crackdowns on political opponents. Under the current Philippine constitution, he is ineligible to run for a second term in 2022 – and he has insisted he has no interest in doing so.

In March, however, a group of Duterte’s allies in his ruling PDP-Laban party unveiled a resolution calling on him to run for vice president in 2022, citing “strong public support for his agenda.” (In the Philippines, the president and vice president are elected separately; current Vice President Leni Robredo is a political opponent of Duterte.)

The resolution has not been sanctioned by the party, according to Senator Manny Pacquiao, who is serving as acting president of PDP-Laban and is himself seen as a possible presidential contender in 2022.

Duterte said in a televised address in March that Senator Bong Go, his former aide and a close ally, wants to run for president in 2022. Go responded by saying Duterte was joking but that he might change his mind “if Duterte runs for vice president.”

Neither Pacquiao nor Go has generated public attention quite like Sara Duterte – regardless of how much of her national popularity may be manufactured. In particular, the possibility of a Duterte-Duterte ticket in 2022 has left supporters enraptured and opponents fearful of a burgeoning political dynasty.

Rodrigo Duterte made headlines in January when, in response to calls for his daughter to run for president, he said the presidency is not a job for women.

“I would pity her if she goes through what I experienced. This is not for women,” he said. “You know, the emotional setup of a woman and a man is totally different. You’ll become a fool here.”

But a Duterte-Duterte power sharing arrangement would not be unprecedented. In 2010, Sara Duterte became mayor of Davao for three years while a term-limited Rodrigo Duterte assumed the position of vice mayor. The two swapped again during the next local election in 2013.

As long as Rodrigo Duterte remains both popular and politically powerful, he will likely have the ability to all but anoint his successor in 2022. When Duterte ran for office in 2016, his populist candidacy was seen as a rebuke of the country’s long history of dynastic politics. It may instead wind up being seen as the beginning of the Duterte dynasty.