NO SHOWS
Numerous high-profile allies of Vice President Sara Duterte, whose would-be impeachment trial was scrapped by the Supreme Court on Friday, skipped Monday’s address, including the president’s senator sister Imee Marcos.
The feud between the Marcos and Duterte political dynasties loomed large over the May mid-terms that saw the vice president’s camp outperform expectations.
The duo swept to power in 2022 in an alliance that began crumbling almost immediately.
Their feud exploded into open warfare this year with her impeachment and the subsequent arrest and transfer of her father, ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, to face charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague over his deadly drug war.
The timelines of those two events coincided with a sharp dip in the president’s polling numbers.
Marcos had publicly stated that he was against the impeachment while consistently maintaining he was powerless to intervene.
“NEW NORMAL”
Last week, the Philippine president for the first time blamed climate change for storms which are hitting the country harder and more frequently, saying Filipinos would need to learn how to adapt.
“This is not an extraordinary situation anymore … This will be our lives no matter what we do,” he told a cabinet briefing, adding the country should plan for the long-term in addressing natural disasters.
“This is the way it’s going to be as far as we know for… many decades to come, so let’s just prepare,” he said.
Michael Henry Yusingco, a senior research fellow at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government, on Monday praised Marcos’s pledge to tackle corruption around flood control projects but warned that follow-through would be everything.
“(To) have a really significant effect on his legacy,” Marcos will need to put people in charge that will “not be afraid to go after these politicians”, he said.
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