Vice President Sara Duterte needs reelectionist Sen. Imee Marcos’ vote in the impeachment court. Marcos, whose ranking in preelection surveys has been steadily sliding down as election day draws near, needs to win first.
Imee and Sara need each other for their political survival.
A week ago, Marcos posted on her Facebook page a 30-second, somber-looking campaign ad featuring her and Duterte, both wearing black. The ad was titled ITIM, which they said was the “current color” of the country as it is faced with too many problems such as hunger, crime and injustice.
The ad gave two meanings for ITIM: Ipaglalaban Tayo ni Imee Marcos and Ilaban ang Tama, Itama ang Mali. Others say it also means Inday Trusts Imee Marcos.
The vice president’s endorsement appears to be Marcos’ Imeesolusyon to boost her declining popularity as a preferred candidate for the Senate after she was dropped from the slate of the administration Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas endorsed by her younger brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Will Sara’s endorsement have a dramatic impact to regain her survey ranking, particularly in the Visayas and Mindanao, where the Dutertes still enjoy significant support? Will her removal from the administration slate mean losing potential votes from supporters of her brother? That we have yet to see.
What is clear now is that they’re both faced with a difficult situation and they need to exploit their friendship to pull through this phase in their political and personal lives.
On one hand, Imee has to resort to desperate measures to get back into the “winning circle,” or the list of the top 12 candidates likely to make it to the Senate of the 20th Congress. Teaming up with Sara is a tactical move, even if it meant portraying her brother as a weak and incompetent leader while pinning her hopes on the vice president, who will most likely run for president in 2028.
The vice president, on the other hand, needs to make sure she will have at least eight votes to reject her impeachment in the next Congress, so she can seek higher office in three years.
To Imee, it seemed easier to please Sara than reconcile with her brother, who is perceived to be shielded by the first lady from the political maneuverings of the self-proclaimed Super Ate ng Pangulo.
The Imee-Sara team-up also gives a semblance of reality to the vice president’s statement a few days before the ad came out that her friendship with the senator “is already beyond politics.”
Imee had brushed aside insinuations that Sara’s endorsement was a reward for initiating a Senate probe into the March 11 arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte. She attributed it to her longtime friendship with the vice president. For how long this friendship will last is anybody’s guess.
Remember that the principal actors in this unfolding drama are the same characters in 2022’s UniTeam, which both Imee and Sara now regret having formed. Imee has been credited with having coined the term UniTeam following her successful bid to convince Sara to abandon her plan to run for reelection as mayor of Davao City and agree to be the vice presidential running mate of her brother.
Both of them expected to be rewarded, so it seems. Imee proclaimed herself as the Super Ate ng Pangulo, projecting an image of an influential sister. To her consternation, that did not happen. The president would not listen to her advice. Sara also did not get the positions she had wanted, such as the defense portfolio. Instead, she was appointed to the education department, where her spending habits were questioned.
Perhaps Imee and Sara deserve each other. Both failed to be amply rewarded for their contributions to Bongbong’s election victory in 2022. In the midterms, the president and his allies have become their adversaries.
In times like this, the people need divine intervention to save the country from self-absorbed politicians like the Marcoses and the Dutertes, who have the gall to invoke God’s name in pursuit of their vested interests in the guise of public service.
Theirs is a kind of friendship for convenience, for their political survival. Friendship is invoked when one’s value is beneficial for the other person.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
