Marcos’ plot vs Sara foiled, political landscape changes drastically

PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s plot to oust Vice President Sara Duterte, launched in 2023 when their alliance fell apart, has been foiled.

The Marcos-led conspiracy to have Sara removed from her post and ban her from running for the presidency through impeachment has been thwarted, with the removal of his minion Sen. Vicente Sotto III as Senate president and the installation of staunch Sara supporter Alan Cayetano, decided by 13 senators — the majority of the 24-member upper chamber.

If ever the Senate convenes as an impeachment court, it will be the same 13 who will vote to acquit her. With the political winds most likely to convince the two senators who abstained in the voting — Miguel Zubiri and JV Ejercito — it will be 15 voting to acquit Sara, more than the nine that is constitutionally required for such acquittal.

A hero in this episode is Sen. Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa who showed up after many months of absence to cast his vote, risking being shanghaied to the International Criminal Court (ICC), as his former boss former president Rodrigo Duterte was, on the trumped-up charges related to Duterte administration’s war on drugs.

The ICC had anomalously given in secret to the political crackpot and Marcos operator Antonio Trillanes IV its warrant of arrest against de la Rosa. Trillanes planned to forcefully — with the help of the National Bureau of Investigation which Marcos has weaponized as his Gestapo of sorts — take de la Rosa out of the Senate premises to prevent him from voting, to a waiting airplane that would take him to the ICC’s headquarters in the Netherlands

Laudable are the five senators who remained loyal to the Republic and the Dutertes, despite the threats against them, and sources claimed, despite the huge bribes offered to them to cooperate with Marcos: Alan Peter Cayetano, Rodante Marcoleta, Imee Marcos, Robin Paidlla and Ronald de la Rosa. Disgusted by the bribes given to members of the House of Representatives, as well as Marcos’ plot to continue in power after 2028, seven other senators surprisingly joined them to remove Sotto: Pia Cayetano, Chiz Escudero, Jinggoy Estrada, Loren Legarda, Jose Villanueva, Mark and Camille Villar.

The nine senators other than Sotto who are loyal to Marcos are the Yellow senators Risa Hontiveros, Kiko Pangilinan, Bam Aquino as well as Panfilo Lacson, the two Tulfo brothers Erwin and Raffy, Sherwin Gatchalian, and Lito Lapid.

Landscape

The ouster of Sotto by the Cayetano-led coalition has vastly changed the political landscape, as it essentially means Sara’s victory over the increasingly oppressive Marcos regime.

Marcos has also lost control of the second major fracture within his ruling bloc, following the increasingly visible split between him and his cousin, former House speaker Martin Romualdez. “It’s downhill now for Malacañang, and even Marcos has been sending the signal that the operational word now is simply ‘maintenance’,” said an official working at the Palace.

Mostly unreported also has been the cessation of one source of funds the Marcos regime had been using to bribe congressmen and the Left, the so-called “unprogrammed appropriations” which rocketed from 5.4 percent of the budget at the start of the Marcos presidency in 2022 to 18 percent in 2023 to 15.4 percent in 2024. After five different groups filed cases at the Supreme Court to rule it unconstitutional, budget officials have practically stopped this unprogrammed-funds scheme in 2026, fearing that they could be criminally liable after cases are filed in courts were the Supreme Court to rule it unconstitutional, which is now very likely.

What deeply worries Malacañang is that even several senators who voted for Tito Sotto are unlikely to remain permanently tied to the Marcos camp if political winds continue shifting toward Sara. Senators are among the country’s most pragmatic political actors. They survive by reading momentum early and repositioning themselves before the collapse becomes obvious to the public.

Sherwin Gatchalian, for example — other than being the son of the Chinese-Filipino magnate William Gatchalian who wouldn’t want to antagonize a sitting president — has cultivated an image as a pragmatic centrist rather than an ideological partisan. His father may ask him to support Sara, when it becomes clearer that she will be the next president.

Lito Lapid’s political behavior throughout his career has likewise reflected accommodation to prevailing national sentiment rather than rigid loyalty to any single faction. If Sara’s popularity remains strong or grows stronger, it would not be surprising for such senators to gradually distance themselves from Malacañang’s anti-Duterte posture.

Even more crucial are the two abstentionists in the Senate leadership battle: JV Ejercito and Miguel Zubiri. In Philippine politics, abstention during a leadership struggle is often not neutrality but strategic hesitation. It signals politicians waiting to determine where momentum is heading before fully committing themselves.

Momentum

And momentum appears increasingly to be shifting toward Sara rather than toward Marcos. What national politician would want to be identified with a lame-duck regime, especially one tainted with the worst corruption schemes in our history?

If Ejercito and Zubiri eventually join the emerging anti-impeachment bloc, the implications become enormous. The Senate would effectively contain a stable majority either unwilling to convict Sara or unwilling even to aggressively pursue the trial. In such a scenario, the impeachment effort could gradually collapse under its own political weight.

This would produce consequences far beyond Sara’s mere political survival. She will emerge not simply acquitted but vindicated. The administration’s attempt to politically destroy her would instead elevate her into the role of a persecuted but triumphant national figure who survived the combined assault of Malacañang, the House leadership, and much of the elite media establishment.

Philippine political history has repeatedly demonstrated how failed attempts to eliminate popular figures often strengthen them instead. The Aquino assassination transformed Cory Aquino into a national icon. Joseph Estrada’s arrest and prosecution preserved his mass appeal among the urban poor. Rodrigo Duterte himself thrived politically because attacks against him reinforced his anti-establishment image. A failed impeachment of Sara Duterte could produce a similar effect on an even larger scale.

Indeed, if the impeachment collapses in the Senate, Sara Duterte could emerge stronger than before the process began. Her supporters will portray the outcome as proof that even the immense powers of the presidency failed to destroy her. The Duterte narrative of persecution, already deeply embedded among its political base, will become even more emotionally powerful.

Such a scenario could unleash what can only be described as a political tsunami. Governors, mayors, congressmen, and local dynasties — always sensitive to shifts in national momentum — would begin repositioning themselves rapidly. Politicians who previously maintained cautious distance from the Duterte camp could suddenly rediscover their admiration for the vice president. Business groups, local elites and regional political operators would begin recalculating the post-2028 landscape.

The only conundrum for the Sara bloc in the Senate would be whether to proceed with the trial — and waste their time and taxpayers’ money in a period when so many issues created by the Middle East conflict demand their attention. Or to refuse to convene a trial, which carries the risk of giving the Marcos minions some propaganda fodder, that it refused to hear the charges that could have proven Sara guilty.

Whatever, yesterday marks the start of the end of the Marcos 2 regime, as despicable as the first.

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Marcos’ plot vs Sara foiled, political landscape changes drastically
Source: Breaking News PH