Divided, we fall Consistent with his ‘unity’ stance, President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. expressed preference to avoid ‘trouble’ and focus on the job instead — a sentiment that he and Vice President Sara Duterte used to share, before ‘trouble’ found the Education department that the VP also heads.
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The alliance that carried Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte to a landslide election victory in 2022 began cracking within weeks, the vice president said on Monday, as she accused the president of breaking one of two personal commitments she sought before agreeing to join his ticket.
Duterte, speaking to supporters in The Hague hours after Marcos delivered his fifth State of the Nation Address, said the president failed to honor one of her requests “in just a month” after she agreed to run alongside him.
“I only asked for two things. When I agreed to run, in tandem with him, as his vice president, he did not fulfill one of my requests in just a month. It had not even been a year,” Duterte said in Filipino.
She declined to disclose the specific request but suggested it involved her role as a mother and her desire to spend time with her children.
“That was related to my request to him about what I needed to do every night for my children because my children are still young,” she said.
Marcos and Duterte’s 2022 “UniTeam” alliance brought together two of the country’s most influential political clans — the Marcos family, which returned to Malacañang decades after the fall of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., and the Duterte family, whose influence was built during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s six-year rule.
The partnership delivered a sweeping victory, with Marcos winning the presidency and Sara Duterte securing the vice presidency by wide margins.
But the alliance unraveled rapidly. Duterte resigned as education secretary and left Marcos’ Cabinet in June 2024, after months of escalating tensions between the two camps.
Since then, she has accused the administration of pursuing her family politically, while Marcos has insisted his government is acting against corruption and abuse.
Before the election, Marcos said Duterte had expressed interest in becoming defense secretary, a proposal he said he welcomed. But after their victory, Marcos appointed her to lead the Department of Education instead.
The former allies are now locked in a high-stakes political confrontation, with Duterte facing an impeachment trial in the Senate over allegations including misuse of confidential funds and abuse of power — charges she has denied.
Marcos did not mention Duterte or her impeachment proceedings during his State of the Nation Address on Monday.
Instead, he focused on his administration’s campaign against corruption, highlighting investigations into alleged irregularities in multibillion-peso flood control projects.
Duterte dismissed the speech as lacking substance and warned supporters against believing Marcos’ promises, including his pledge to hold accountable those involved in the flood control controversy.
