The Philippines’ slide to 120th place out of 182 countries in the latest global corruption perceptions index of Transparency International is more than a diplomatic embarrassment — it is a diagnostic reading of a body politic in distress.

With a score of 32 out of 100 — the Philippines’ worst showing since the index began using the 0-100 scale 18 years ago — the country got one of the lowest scores among countries in Asia Pacific (tied with Togo, Angola, and El Salvador, and only better than Mongolia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and North Korea).

This decline coincides with a corruption scandal that has eroded investor confidence and revealed a political class seemingly unmoored from accountability.

Yet the deeper crisis may lie ahead: the prospect that Vice President Sara Duterte, despite facing multiple impeachment complaints and allegations of vast ill-gotten wealth, could ascend to the presidency in 2028 through sheer popular appeal.

For a nation already hemorrhaging credibility, this would be catastrophic.

The allegations against the Vice President are not trivial — unexplained accumulation of wealth, that is, P13 million in 2007 to P44 million in 2017 and a staggering P11 billion in bank transactions in 2015-2016, all on a modest public official’s salary — has jaws dropping to the floor.

There is the spending of P125 million in confidential funds in 11 days, thousands of submitted acknowledgment receipts bearing names without birth records, and bank transactions reportedly exceeding P2 billion between 2015 and 2016 — grossly disproportionate to her declared annual income of approximately P2 million as a public official.

Three impeachment complaints have consolidated evidence of plunder, graft, and bribery, including allegations of ties to perpetrators of extrajudicial killings during her tenure as Davao City mayor.

Her public statement threatening the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and then House Speaker Martin Romualdez — which she later claimed was taken out of context — further underscores a troubling disregard for constitutional norms.

What, people wonder, could the President do under such circumstances? As chief of state, he possesses considerable constitutional powers that he could now deploy with urgency. He could ensure that the impeachment trial proceeds without interference. Former Senate president Franklin Drilon has warned that if there is a change in the Senate leadership, the trial may never occur.

Marcos must publicly commit to non-interference while privately signaling that accountability is non-negotiable — not vengeance, but institutional hygiene.

The President could also empower the Ombudsman to pursue the plunder and forfeiture cases already filed against the Vice President, invoking Republic Act No. 1379 which presumes any property disproportionate to the official salary to be ill-gotten.

He also must, posthaste, anoint and actively support a reformist successor from within or outside his administration.

The President’s legacy will be defined not by what he cleans up from the past, but by what he will build to replace it.

For politically aware Filipinos, the temptation is to retreat into the so-called “bobotante” narrative — blaming the poor voters for their supposed ignorance. This is both analytically lazy and strategically suicidal.

Research shows that poor voters vote rationally within their lived constraints, often prioritizing survival over abstract governance principles. The task is not to shame, but to organize. Citizens must support opposition coalescence behind a single standard-bearer. Drilon is correct that fragmented resistance guarantees defeat.

They must also defend institutions — the Commission on Audit, the Ombudsman, civil society — against efforts to weaken them.

Electoral victory is not the only measure of success; building alternative power structures that can survive electoral defeat is equally vital.

If Sara Duterte assumes the presidency in 2028 amid unresolved corruption allegations, the Philippines will signal to the world that accountability is optional and that wealth acquired through public office carries no political cost.

The country’s Corruption Perception Index score will likely decline further. Investments will contract. The cycle of impunity will complete itself.

But this future is not inevitable. The same popular sentiment that elevated the Dutertes can be rechanneled — not by insulting the electorate’s intelligence (or lack thereof), but by offering tangible alternatives that address material needs.

The fight for 2028 is not merely about defeating one candidate; it is about proving that democratic institutions can still produce accountability. The window is narrow, but it remains open.