It has been said that some national candidates refrained from canceling out the Dutertes in order to court the votes of the Duterte Diehard Supporters (DDS). That was the common perception before the May 12 midterms. Was the DDS vote truly that formidable?
After May 12, the answer became clearer. Many of the most hyper rabid candidates supporting the Dutertes had their elections vanishing into thin air. In some instances, Sara’s endorsement was a kiss of death. The so-called DDS vote appears to be a mere excessive estimation, more like a troll-generated threat.
Nowhere was this more stunning than in Bohol where the defeat was wholesale. Take note that Bohol is the home province of Leoncio Evasco, prisoner Rodrigo Duterte’s master tactician who conceptualized the Maisug rallies that never gained momentum.
On April 28, Sara personally visited Bohol to endorse and campaign for local candidates of the One Bohol for Good Governance, a movement supporting pro-Duterte candidates. The movement’s selection was said to be stringent – nominees must be unequivocal Duterte supporters.
The Sara endorsees had a candidate for governor (Dan Neri Lim) and vice governor (Gerardo Garcia). There were two candidates for board members of the 2nd district. It also had candidates vying for Congress in the 2nd and 3rd districts (Modesto Membreve and Makdo Castañares, respectively). In the 3rd district, there were three candidates for board member.
Sara also had candidates for the local government units. There was an entire slate for mayor and councilors in Inabanga, as well as mayoral, vice mayoral and municipal council candidates in Valencia. Bohol voted overwhelmingly for the father Duterte in 2016 and for the daughter in 2022.
How did the Sara endorsement turn out? All of them lost, except for one candidate for municipal councilor in Valencia. The Sara magic, a vaunted one in the minds of many, was not vaunted after all. Lawyer Jesus Falsis calls it “Duterte palpak” (failure) more than “Duterte magic.”
There were patterns elsewhere in the country.
While Duterte Youth placed second national over-all in the party list race, it was not the same for its puffed-up founders, the couple Ronald and Marie Cardema. Both Cardemas talk like trolls – the overhyped Duterte drug war as justified because of drug addiction proliferation, and communists as the enemies of Rodrigo Duterte (despite that the left and Duterte were such sweet friends in 2016).
Four days before election day, Mr. and Mrs. Cardema filed an impeachment complaint against President Bongbong Marcos in the House of Representatives. It was a move seen as a bid to shore up their popularity among DDS voters. The couple then posed for photos, showing the first page of what they claimed was a verified complaint. Upon closer scrutiny of the photo, it had no received stamp of the Office of the Secretary General of the House.
In Ronald Cardema’s comic book fantasy, he is a hero even if empirically he is not. He is popularly regarded as a fake news peddler. The voters of Calamba city, Laguna saw through the ruse. Ronald lost his bid for provincial board member of Laguna’s Calamba district, placing third for a field that selects only two board members. Marie lost her bid for city councilor of Calamba, placing 16th for a city council that selects 12 councilors.
That was not the end for the Cardemas. Social media netizens took note of a Cardema boast said before the elections, that if he and his wife lose their electoral bids, they would leave the country. Netizens did not forget. As news of their defeat spread nationwide, a Facebook event created by Tonyo Cruz was titled “Send-off for Ronald and Marie Cardema,” so far attracting more than 6,000 netizens and nearly 400 said they were going. Ronald Cardema should read the post for it shows how much he is being satirized – meaning not taken seriously for his outré Dutertisms.
The Sara kiss of death was especially seen in the city of Manila and in Batangas. She deliberately made negative campaigning for the congressmen who were potential prosecutors in her forthcoming impeachment trial in the senate. These congressmen were among the most vocal in the House Quadcomm hearings. Representative Joel Chua (Manila, 3rd district) headed the House committee on good governance that conducted seven hearings on Sara’s red-flagged use of confidential funds.
Sara saw the election campaign as payback time. Guesting in the rally of Chua’s opponent Apple Nieto, Sara made another murderous statement. Listen to this footage, turning to Nieto: “Ibibigay ko itong apple kay Apple Nieto. Mam, isaksak mo ito sa bibig ni Joel Chua hanggang sa kanyang lalamunan, hanggang sya ay . . . mamatay” (I will give this apple to Apple Nieto. Mam, push this apple in his mouth all the way to his throat, until he . . . dies). The mayoralty candidate Isko Moreno was seen in the background laughing.
Joel Chua won the election by 4,000 votes.
Sara did the same negative campaigning in Batangas province’s 2nd district. The candidate was the lawyer and Quadcomm hearings stalwart Jinky Luistro. Guesting the rally of Luistro’s opponent Ranie Abu, Sara told the crowd that Luistro did not pay attorney’s fees to the law firm of her husband Manases Carpio. It was typical Duterte tactic – destroy the reputation of critics and enemies, knowing that many DDS accept everything the Dutertes say hook, line and sinker.
Well, no. Batangas 2nd district voted Luistro by a wide margin (105,224 votes against Abu’s 65,690).
In Tondo, part of Manila’s 2nd district, Sara also accompanied Moreno’s sortie where she mocked the incumbent congressman Rolando Valeriano, another Duterte critic. Mimicking Valeriano’s voice, she told the crowd: “Yung congressman ninyo, yan yung mukha ng distrito ninyo. Yan yung pambato ninyo doon sa House of Representatives. Unang-una sa sobrang laki ng le-eg niya naiipit na yung boses niya”
(Your congressman, that’s the face of your district. He’s your champion in the House of Representatives. First of all, his neck is so big that it is choking his own voice). It was classic Sara – childish, callow, and devoid of erudition.
Sara wanted to manifest her ability to campaign on the national stage using her brand of character assassination, a Duterte family favorite pastime. It worked in Davao city. But at the end of her revenge tour of her impeachment tormentors, it did not work. On election day, voters rejected her.
Among the other Duterte losers was Mocha Uson who ran for city councilor in Manila’s 3rd district. Still sex-obsessed, Uson’s attention was called by Comelec for her campaign jingle that had sexual undertones. She placed a dismal 10th place in a field that selected six winners. It was her second loss. In 2022, she ran under the party list Mothers for Change.
The last two most spectacular defeats are reserved for Cynthia Villar and Pantaleon Alvarez. Many in the Philippine social media world cheered Villar’s defeat to a former city councilor as lone representative of Las Piñas. Perhaps few national politicians can equal the popular odium Villar holds from the Filipino public for her haughtiness in the Senate. Her defeat was one for the books. Nothing more can be said.
The last is reserved for Pantaleon Alvarez, the former House speaker and congressman known for his outlandish pronouncements that prop up Rodrigo Duterte (“Duterte can still run for president in 2028.”). Alvarez finished a miserable third for vice governor of Davao del Norte province. The winner, running under Marcos’s Partido Federal ng Pilipinas, had a commanding lead over him by more than a hundred thousand votes.
Before the week after May 12 was over, Alvarez’s eldest son Alfonso sought poetic justice for his philandering father. In an explosive recorded video footage titled “Road to My Mansion Anomaly,” Alfonso Alvarez bared that her father had built a hilltop mansion in a 20-hectare property for his mistress Jennifer Maliwanag.
“Isang bagay na nakakahiyang aminin” (One matter that is shameful for us to admit). The zigzag road going up the mansion was concreted using government public works funds. A concrete perimeter wall surrounds the entire 20 hectares. “Alam kong pera ng government yun” (I know government money was used for that). The younger Alvarez knows whereof he speaks – he served as his father’s district chief of staff in Davao del Norte.
“Ginawa talaga yun para kay Jenny, yung girlfriend ni Papa. Wala na man syang malaking negosyo. Marami din syang beach properties na acquire, sa Siargao, sa Samal. Nakapangalan ito sa mga dummy. Yung iba pinapangalan nya kay Jenny.”
(It was constructed for Jenny, Papa’s girlfriend. He has no sufficient business to fund that. He also acquired many beach properties, in Siargao, in Samal. These are named after dummies. The others are in Jenny’s name).
The coast is clear: many of these pro-Duterte candidates are better off as dregs of society. Pantaleon Alvarez is Exhibit No. 1 that what DDS think of Duterte as a fighter against corruption is a lie. If we can send such thieving politicians to their defeat, the country would be in a better state.
It also opens the possibility that the time may come when the Philippines can be free from the Duterte family. The 2025 election was a good kick-off for that.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
