While Vice President Sara Duterte is often criticized for her frequent trips abroad—her “world tour”—the specter of 2028 grows larger and the question of how to stop another Duterte presidency becomes harder to ask.
What’s obvious is that Sara Duterte is securing the vote of the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), a small but not insignificant percentage of voters, way ahead of the campaign period. Her trips have all been to OFW-rich countries. One can predict that, in October 2027, when she files her candidacy for president, she would pour all her energies on campaigning locally and, by that time, those largely dependent on OFW remittances would need only a nudge to vote for her.
Imagine this scenario: It’s the campaign period and Duterte appears in a small barrio. Those who see the VP would almost immediately recognize a connection, not just between her and themselves, but also between them and their OFW relatives who once glimpsed her in the flesh in some corner of the First World, right when they felt so ignored by the country they grew up in. That kind of connection is almost impossible to break.
The OFW who, by then, has become a long-time die-hard Duterte supporter would only need to recount the incident to their relative: “Di ba, you finally see what I meant when I first saw her here in the Middle East? She is so sweet and simple, unlike the way the mainstream media there or that impeachment court cast her to be!” Come Election Day, it wouldn’t be hard for the OFW-dependent Pinoy to vote for Sara Duterte—or whichever other Duterte offspring in case she gets convicted by the impeachment court.
Sara Duterte is deliberately marinading a voter base that organically gravitated together when her father sought the presidency in 2016. If in 2016 the family’s narrative for OFWs was that Rodrigo Duterte was the iron fist the country needed to make that turnaround à la Lee Kuan Yew for Singapore, or à la great princes and kings in the Middle East, then what they are nursing in 2028 is not only continuation and revenge, but also Sara Duterte as a messenger of sorts: as someone who has seen what they’ve seen abroad, knows what they go through abroad, and who will bring these experiences back to the land of their birth. And with the old man Duterte behind bars in The Hague, the narrative of the oppressed and hard-working Filipino abroad only gets more tangible and relatable.
But the irony here is that this momentum by a Duterte could not have been possible without help from Ferdinand Marcos Sr. himself. It was on May 1, 1974, almost two years after the imposition of martial law, a little more than eight years into the first Marcos Sr. presidency, and deep into the trough of an economic recession caused by the oil crisis and local political turmoil, that the dictator institutionalized the overseas Filipino worker through the passage of the labor export policy, or Presidential Decree (PD) No. 442. While labor migration had been a trend since the American occupation, PD 442 institutionalized it in our history.
Scholars and migrant labor groups have long understood Marcos Sr.’s PD 442 to be a stopgap measure for the ballooning unemployment and underemployment rates during those years. The Philippine Institute for Development Studies pegged the unemployment rate in 1970–1974 at 5.6%, growing steadily to 11.2% in 1983–1985; the underemployment rate was at 13.4% in 1970–1974, decreasing to 11.8% in 1975–1979, and skyrocketing to 30.8% in 1983–1985. Seen this way, one can say that Marcos Sr. set the gears in motion for Marcos Jr.’s fall, almost half a century before his son even took the presidency in 2022.
The OFW as a 52-year-old institution must be understood to see how thoughtfully planned out Sara Duterte’s strategy is. Her trips abroad are a rounding up of troops. To underestimate or downplay these trips is to make a mistake: There are no accidents or “plot holes” when you’ve hired multimillion-peso PR and digital marketing firms to build and solidify narratives for you.
In the past few weeks, the Duterte communications machinery has been on overdrive. While its unintelligible scorecards and spliced commentaries on the impeachment trial have been a staple, its messaging hit a peak last Sept. 5, at the Quezon City Hall of Justice. The Vice President and her lawyers delivered lines that pro-Duterte vloggers are regurgitating over and over: “I don’t feel safe.” “I don’t trust the administration.” “Political persecution.”
The blocking of her bodyguards, the police, the vloggers, the media, and the extras seemed expertly done. They let everything happen, too, outside the Hall of Justice when court processes are usually done inside, and they let a Philippine flag fall right above her as she was leaving, her right fist raised, perfect for the pictures. Those who consider themselves even partly internet-savvy can find videos of the skit preps online (some alleging that Chavit Singson and the old lady who hugged the VP on her way out were both in on it).
On Sept. 16, a Wednesday, Rodrigo Duterte appeared at the International Criminal Court for only the second time since his arrest last year. Again, the communications team had a ball, making much of his bright skin, fuller head of hair, and radiant smile in ways unheard of for those accused of crimes against humanity. Was this rare court appearance unexpected by his expensive legal team?
All these point to smartly choreographed narrative-building. And when people start to see how deliberately the Dutertes’ image curators are moving, it shouldn’t be so hard to see that on the receiving end is an audience quite easily manipulated. While one may view Duterte supporters, or the DDS, as a homogeneous and malevolent bloc, to see the Duterte communications as choreographed mass deception means that one should also see the DDS as symptoms of the problem and not the problem per se. Like the massive OFW population, they are symptoms of bigger problems which were spawned a long time ago. Addressing them will ultimately require way more than just arguing points over social media platforms or, in the case of the 2028 presidential election, a brief miting de avance.
Talk of OFWs has also been at a high lately. In September, someone posted on Facebook about an encounter in Switzerland: elderly OFWs who had been there for some time berating Filipino tourists who were having their pictures taken at Iseltwald Pier. The post turned viral, and mainstream news even picked it up. Clearly, there is now a case of haves vs have-nots among Filipinos abroad. And as it is back in the Philippines, the idea of being “kababayan” can no longer bridge that difference.
On the positive end, there is Alex Eala and the platform she has provided Filipinos, once more, to showcase such awesome presence outside our shores. All this should be telling enough of how the Filipino population abroad is more a church than a mere statistic, with its own rules for entry, for acceptance, and for worship.
Noticeably, VP Sara hardly has her pictures taken in tourist sites abroad. Instead, she has ritualistically had her pictures taken at local churches.
I am of the belief that the consistent downplaying of the DDS has long served as their shield to not be taken seriously by those who despise them, and as a sword for their mass base to play the victim card. The Duterte communications machinery is quite a thing to watch—and understand.
On a personal note, I am writing this after a difficult conversation with our house helper, yaya to our only child so far. She is an overall good person, a godsend even, not on her phone or online too often, and very skilled at calming our baby down, making her laugh, and exposing her to the joys that are to come. She spent 12 years in Kuwait, from 2012 to 2024, as a domestic helper for a family of almost-royalty. In those 12 years, she was able to come home only once. She couldn’t cast her vote in 2016 and 2022; the embassy was too far from where she worked. She believed and still believes in Rodrigo Duterte’s brand of social control because, she said, “that is how it was like in other countries, the rules were followed.”
Of course, my wife and I assured her of her right to vote and to believe in Duterte, still. Of course, we talked about how and why we don’t believe in the family’s leadership. Nevertheless, in our conversation, I felt that the cards have long been dealt and put to play. Now there’s only so little that can be done. CS
