The Philippines is approaching another major political confrontation as the alliance that brought Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte to power has effectively collapsed into open rivalry. Their partnership in 2022 was electorally formidable because it joined two of the country’s most powerful political families: the Marcos dynasty retained deep support in northern Luzon, while the Dutertes dominated much of Mindanao. Four years later, their coalition has disintegrated amid disputes over government spending, foreign policy, the investigation of former president Rodrigo Duterte, and Sara Duterte’s own political future. The confrontation is larger than an ordinary disagreement between president and vice-president because Philippine politics remains unusually organised around families and personalities rather than stable ideological parties. The interesting question is therefore not simply whether Marcos or Duterte emerges stronger. It is what democratic accountability means when voters can replace individual politicians but political power continues circulating through a relatively small number of dynastic networks.
Political dynasties are not automatically undemocratic. If citizens freely choose a candidate whose parent previously held office, prohibiting that candidate solely because of family identity would itself restrict voter choice. The deeper problem appears when political families accumulate advantages large enough that elections remain formally competitive while entry into political competition becomes structurally unequal. Name recognition, local patronage networks, financing and control over party organisations make it much easier for established families to reproduce political power across generations. Democracy therefore requires more than the absence of hereditary legal titles. It requires enough equality of political opportunity that office is not effectively inherited through advantages inaccessible to ordinary citizens.
The Philippines illustrates this tension unusually clearly. The 1986 People Power Revolution removed Ferdinand Marcos Sr. after years of authoritarian rule, yet his son eventually returned to the presidency through democratic election. Rodrigo Duterte succeeded in constructing another enormously powerful political network, and Sara Duterte became vice-president while remaining a potential future presidential candidate. This does not mean Filipinos have forgotten history or rejected democracy. It shows that democratic memory competes with contemporary political incentives. Voters can condemn aspects of a family’s past while believing a current member offers stability, competence or policies they prefer. Democratic citizens are not obligated to inherit the political judgements of previous generations.
The problem is that personality-centred politics can weaken institutions by making political loyalty more important than policy consistency. Philippine parties are often relatively fluid, with politicians changing affiliations and coalitions according to electoral circumstances. That gives leaders considerable flexibility but reduces the ability of voters to know what a party will represent after the election. In a programmatic party system, citizens can punish a governing party for poor performance and expect the opposition to implement a recognisably different programme. In a highly personal system, elections risk becoming competitions between networks of patronage rather than competing theories of government.
The Marcos-Duterte split also exposes how coalition politics changes once the common objective of winning power disappears. Their 2022 alliance did not require deep ideological agreement because both benefited from combining regional vote banks. Once elected, however, the distribution of offices, resources and future presidential succession became zero-sum. Sara Duterte’s potential candidacy for the presidency means policies adopted today affect the balance of power in 2028. This is a classic commitment problem inside political coalitions: partners cooperate while each needs the other, then begin defecting when one fears the other will become too powerful later.
Foreign policy has widened that division. Marcos has strengthened defence cooperation with the United States and taken a more assertive position towards China in the South China Sea, particularly after repeated confrontations around disputed reefs and Philippine vessels. The Duterte family historically pursued a more accommodating relationship with Beijing and a more sceptical attitude towards Washington. The domestic political rivalry therefore overlaps with a genuine strategic debate: should the Philippines respond to Chinese power primarily through stronger American deterrence, or through accommodation designed to reduce confrontation?
Neither strategy is costless. The Philippines cannot match China’s military capabilities independently, making its US alliance valuable for deterrence. But greater American military access can increase the probability that Philippine territory becomes involved in a wider US-China confrontation, particularly over Taiwan. Accommodation reduces immediate tension but risks allowing China gradually to change conditions in disputed waters because Manila lacks the capability to resist alone. The Philippines therefore faces the same security dilemma of small states beside great powers: alliance dependence creates entrapment risk, while strategic isolation creates coercion risk.
The South China Sea makes this especially important because sovereignty and economic interests overlap. Fishing grounds, potential energy resources and maritime routes matter materially, while territorial claims also carry symbolic national value. The 2016 arbitration ruling rejected important elements of China’s expansive maritime claims, but legal success did not give Manila the physical capability to enforce the ruling independently. This demonstrates the limits of international law without making international law meaningless. Rules can establish legitimacy and attract external support, but law constrains power most effectively when institutions and material capabilities exist to enforce it.
Marcos’s strategy therefore has been to combine law with alliance power. Expanded access for American forces under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement increases the expected cost China would face if a confrontation escalated. Yet Manila should avoid becoming merely a platform for American strategy. The objective of an alliance should be increasing Philippine freedom of action, not replacing dependence on Chinese pressure with dependence on American preferences. A useful alliance enlarges the choices available to the weaker partner; an unhealthy dependency determines those choices for it.
The domestic institutional problem remains equally important because political conflict between powerful families can either strengthen or weaken accountability. Rival elites sometimes expose corruption and abuse that would remain hidden inside a unified governing coalition. Competition can therefore generate oversight accidentally. But investigations lose legitimacy when citizens believe law enforcement is being used selectively against political enemies. This is why independent courts and prosecutors matter most during periods of intense partisan conflict. The question should be whether evidence supports prosecution, not whether the accused belongs to the Marcos or Duterte camp.
Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial anti-drug campaign demonstrates this principle particularly sharply. Thousands were killed during the campaign, and allegations of extrajudicial executions generated international investigation. Supporters argue that Duterte restored order against serious crime; critics argue that the state abandoned due process and normalised killing without trial. The philosophical issue is fundamental: a state receives extraordinary coercive powers because it promises to exercise them through law rather than private judgement. If government can decide guilt first and legal process afterwards, the distinction between public authority and organised violence begins to erode.
Security remains a legitimate state responsibility. Citizens who fear crime have a right to demand effective policing. But effectiveness and legality should not be treated as opposites. A capable state should be able to investigate, prosecute and imprison dangerous offenders precisely because its institutions work. Extrajudicial violence can appear efficient when courts are slow, but it avoids rather than solves institutional weakness. The more durable response is improving the justice system so that due process becomes compatible with state capacity rather than an excuse for its absence.
The Marcos-Duterte conflict should therefore be judged less through personalities than through what it does to institutions. If competition produces stronger oversight, clearer foreign-policy debate and genuine electoral alternatives, the collapse of their alliance could strengthen Philippine democracy. If it produces selective prosecution, disinformation and another contest in which political families treat the state as an instrument for defeating one another, the country may change leaders without changing its underlying political structure.
That distinction matters because elections alone do not guarantee political equality. They guarantee that citizens can choose among the alternatives placed before them. A mature democracy also needs institutions capable of allowing new alternatives to emerge. Campaign-finance transparency, stronger parties, independent media and limits on patronage can make political competition less dependent on surname and inherited networks without denying voters the right to choose candidates from established families.
The Philippines has repeatedly demonstrated extraordinary democratic mobilisation, from People Power in 1986 to highly competitive contemporary elections. The challenge is turning that democratic energy into institutions less dependent on exceptional personalities. Marcos and Duterte will eventually leave politics. The deeper question is whether the political system they leave behind will still require another Marcos or Duterte to organise most meaningful competition.
A democracy becomes genuinely institutionalised when the identities of its leaders matter less than the rules governing what leaders are allowed to do. The Philippines does not need politics without powerful families; it needs political institutions strong enough that even the most powerful family remains temporarily entrusted with the state rather than behaving as though electoral victory gives it ownership of the state.
