The nationwide protests on 30 November laid bare a profound dilemma of a citizenry outraged by systemic corruption fractured not just by tactics but in terms of ultimate goals.

Consider what transpired during last Sunday’s protests: leftist activists and Duterte loyalists shared a stage only in their demand for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s resignation, while diverging sharply on Vice President Sara Duterte.

This disunity, coupled with institutional skepticism from figures like Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David, head of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, forces a critical question: what is the most viable and prudent course of action for a nation weary of graft?

Former Ateneo School of Government dean, lawyer Antonio La Viña, proposes a hybrid solution that envisions sustained civil pressure to force a political reset, that is, the resignation of both Marcos and Duterte, allowing space for a multisectoral body to draft radical reforms before new elections.

This model appeals to the desire for a foundational cleanse.

However, as some quarters rightly caution, the success of such a solution hinges on the very institutions — Congress, the judiciary, the Commission on Elections — which, with their inherent weaknesses, are part of the problem.

To expect these bodies to neutrally steward a revolutionary transition, especially one born of street protests lacking a unified middle-class base, is a monumental gamble.

It risks a constitutional crisis, a political vacuum, and potentially more instability, which, historically in the Philippines, has often benefited the entrenched powers rather than those advocating for reform.

In stark contrast are those who propose a pragmatic solution, one that calls for strategic patience.

Their argument is coldly realistic — bear with Marcos until 2028. This view is grounded in some compelling observations, one being that the middle class, - a crucial bloc for any sustained political movement - has anxieties about who and what would fill the vacancy left by Marcos.

This brings us to the critical succession question, one that grapples with the reality that forcing Marcos out elevates Vice President Duterte, a figure described by not a few as “too unhinged and too mired in corruption,” potentially exchanging one problem for what could be a greater one.

Many point out that the investigation into the corruption scandal involved with the flood control projects is key, and that allowing the existing judicial and executive processes to run their course, however imperfect, may — at the end — yield more tangible, legally sound results than a politically chaotic ouster.

Thus, the most sensible course of action, it would seem lies not in choosing between pure protest and passive endurance, but in forging a third way: strategic, focused pressure within the constitutional framework.

The goal should shift from the politically fraught and divisive “resign all” cry to a more targeted, actionable agenda.

The anti-corruption movement must mobilize around specific, institutional demands rather than personality-focused exits.

Unified calls — that is, if there are enough adherents to unity in a sustained call — for a full, transparent, and expedited resolution of all major corruption scandals like the flood control corruption scandal with guaranteed congressional oversight and citizen monitoring can create a common platform.

Second, civil society, the clergy, academia, students, the youth in general, business groups and other concerned citizens should channel their energy into drafting and lobbying for concrete legislative reforms now — to strengthen the Ombudsman, empower the anti-corruption courts, enact freedom of information laws — rather than waiting for a hypothetical post-resignation transition.

This turns the remaining years of the administration — that is, if the current dispensation is able to stand its ground until 2028 — into a pressured incubation period for reform.

Ultimately, the best action is to treat the current term not as an inevitability to be merely endured nor as an aberration to be violently excised, but as a contested space to be strategically occupied.

The protests must continue, but as a calibrated drumbeat demanding accountability in specific cases and not as a vague cry for revolution spooking the crucial center.

The aim is to box in both Marcos and Duterte, along with members of Congress and other suspects in corruption and irregularities, with relentless scrutiny, making corruption politically costlier day by day, while building a concrete blueprint for reform that can be wielded at the ballot box in 2028.

And there is, too, the move to pursue, even more decisively, VP Sara Duterte’s impeachment.

Whatever the country and its concerned citizens may resort to, there is no denying that the moment must be seized — not for an insurrection, but for the harder, more tedious work of building an institutional legacy that will outlast any single compromised leader.

The fight against a corrupt body politic is not won by decapitating the head if the disease is in the organs; it is won by patiently and persistently strengthening the immune system — the very survival of democracy itself.