Then, One Day, Change Came—Just Not the Kind the Dutertes Wanted

The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is a reminder of how power can shift dramatically in a country where big changes are believed to be difficult to come by.

Allen Gumiran

2025-03-27T08:23:25.431Z

There are years when nothing truly remarkable happens, and days when even the seemingly improbable happens.

This was written in March and yet 2025 is already overflowing with the latter. And it’s not just because of Donald Trump, the recently reelected United States president who—in one day—can make multiple enemies while doling out destabilizing executive orders like a waiter during the peak hours of a diner. 2025, so far, has been full of surprises, bringing joy or suffering, or schadenfreude depending on one’s preferences or mood for the moment.

Whether it be in New York, Jakarta, Moscow, or Manila, the reign of the mild-mannered is over, replaced by dozens of unhinged characters shaking up systems. This is unfortunately not a South Park episode. Even its creators have tapped out, announcing the new season by next year than now.

The recent news from the Philippines may look like a plot device for the show, but this time, the details are more than what fictional absurdities can offer. For while fiction is always bound to possibilities, truth isn’t.

Here, the seemingly impossible happened. Rodrigo Duterte--the former president who seemed so untouchable that he could admit to murder on camera and still walk away as if nothing happened—was arrested. He was surrendered to the International Criminal Court (ICC) during the presidency of his successor: Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the running mate of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte.

It was not too long ago that the executive power couple formed the Uniteam tandem. That led Marcos Jr. to win 58.77 percent of the votes in the 2022 presidential elections. The younger Duterte, meanwhile, won 61.53 percent of the votes for her post. Since then, the union has dissolved.

The Marcos-Duterte spat, at least in public, began to unravel over the funds totaling 125 million PHP that the Vice President supposedly wasted on God knows what. Although, to those in circles that thrive in whispers and blind items, it may have started much earlier. It supposedly happened when the President—fresh off of the electoral victory—didn’t give his Vice President the cabinet seat she coveted. She wanted to be the Secretary of National Defense. She, instead, became the Secretary of Education. Some, however, said that it really began when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, a Duterte ally, was ousted from the deputy speaker position in a congress led by Martin Romualdez, cousin of the president—the first discernable target of the younger Duterte’s ire.

Nevertheless, it was the probe of Duterte’s supposedly anomalous spending—led by the Congress—which dragged the Marcos-Duterte animosities out in the open. This prompted a series of outbursts from the younger Duterte that ran through months on end. One notable episode became controversial as the Vice President provocatively dared the President to challenge her domain and, in exchange, she will dig up the corpse of the President’s father and cast it into sea. Another one saw her in a darkened room, declaring that should anything happen to her, the President and his allies will be killed.

Moments after that crashout, the government declared her a national security threat, short on being branded as a nutcase or a heretic.

Many thought that this would be the high-water mark of their spat but all were proven wrong by the events of March 11. Back in 2017, Jude Sabio, the lawyer for one of Duterte’s confessed hitmen, Edgar Matobato, filed a complaint before the ICC against then-president Duterte and his allies. The complaint alleged crimes against humanity, that some 30,000 lives were ended because of him and his cohorts.

In response, Duterte’s administration withdrew the Philippines from the ICC but the court insisted that this does not nullify the case since the alleged crimes the older Duterte was accused of happened from November 2011 to March 2019. In other words, before the withdrawal.

Duterte would then spend years provoking and even threatening the institution. In a video widely shared now, he could be seen mocking the court, saying that they should hurry up.

They gave him what he asked for. On that Tuesday, he was arrested. Interpol, with the help of the Philippine National Police (which Duterte spoiled during his rule) cornered him as he was returning from a trip to Hong Kong and read him his rights.

Four years ago, such a thing would’ve never happened. But there we were: the man once a poster boy for vulgarity and irreverence, reduced to a bewildered and feeble shadow of what he once was, taken shortly to a plane bound for the Netherlands. And all these tasks were accomplished in twenty-four hours.

That made the pain to his supporters more evident and pronounced. Immediately, they began to pounce, spouting temper tantrums in social media, holding rallies—that which they used to mock progressives for when the Duterte was in the height of power, sparking outrage left and right. If karma truly existed, this appeared to be a manifestation of it.

“Betrayal!” The partisans cried, as they were double-crossed by the erstwhile Duterte ally they voted into the presidency, the one they called a weak leader when his relationship with his Vice President was starting to turn sour.

Demonstrations and petitions have been planned, though its tangible effects are yet to materialize save for the messy comments section on the social media posts of one of the ICC judges. And regardless of such efforts, their symbol is already gone, with the ICC declaring that he is their most prized suspect so far.

When the pre-trial began last March 14, 2025, his counsel attempted to use the same old rhetorical devices they got so accustomed on pulling over on his behalf so many times. So successful these claims they made, that there is an expectation that the jury will be persuaded. Instead, they are met with stony replies and rebuttals, with the main hearing scheduled in the next six months, as they are still at pre-trial. The hype, built up for some days since March 11, turned out to be a dud: a deflated balloon that no one wants.

Admist the sturm un drang of the online space from his supporters, and countless mobilizations on the ground, the verdict so far cannot be overturned. They can shout and cry injustice for all day long. But it remains to be seen if their demands will translate into teeth, and from those teeth, an actionable platform.

One can say that their defense of this man is never intended to pursue any of the justifications they incessantly preach. What appears more of a motivation is the realization that they have been outflanked by this tactical maneuver from what they deem as a reliable partner in crime slash Judas Iscariot. In online parlance, they all badly got owned or pwned into oblivion.

From the looks of it, a politician’s downfall can either provide us with laughter with the corresponding fireworks, or raw anger coupled with righteous fury and measures to bring his head into the chopping table. Others expected a bang, a final curtain before you can walk into the sunset. But for this one, all that was observed resembled more of a whimper, a sad and flaccid comeuppance. Here lies an epitaph for pure wind.

Still, as recent events have shown, winds can change drastically. History has proven that it can happen by the hands of many or few. Leaders and institutions, no matter how revered can rise and fall. And even though people justify their nonparticipation in politics by saying that “nothing truly changes,” change—as the older Duterte promised when was running for president—can come. And sometimes, all we need is one day to see it all unfold.

Then, One Day, Change Came—Just Not the Kind the Dutertes Wanted

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