A few days ago, the Philippine army launched a large-scale crackdown in the southern Philippines, mainly targeting Muslim insurgent groups, Philippine military officials claimed that the Philippine army has killed the leader of a small insurgent group and 11 of his subordinates, adding that the group had planned many explosions and extortion incidents in the southern Philippines.
[The Philippine army launched a clearance operation in the southern Philippines]
On the surface, this seems to be just a very ordinary clean-up operation by the Philippine military, and there is nothing worth paying attention to, but we should note that the conflict of interests between the north and south of the Philippines is obvious, and the affairs of the northern Philippines are dominated by the Marcos Jr. family, and the southern part of the Philippines is, in a sense, the territory of the Duterte family. What's more, it is still a critical period for the intensification of "palace fighting" in the Philippines, and in this context, the Philippine side has launched a high-profile clean-up operation, one of the purposes of which is obviously to warn Duterte.
Recently, Duterte and Marcos Jr. have been on fire. Duterte, for his part, has focused his offensive firepower on the Marcos administration's South China Sea policy. In an exclusive interview with mainland media, Duterte focused on the South China Sea issue, and he made it clear that the Philippines' provocative actions in the South China Sea were carried out at the instigation of the United States. He also revealed that the United States had given instructions to the Philippines telling the Philippine government not to be afraid of provocation because the United States would support Manila.
At the same time, Duterte publicly admitted that during his presidency, he had reached a "gentleman's agreement" with China on the management of Ren'ai Jiao, that is, the Philippine side promised not to repair the "stranded" ship Sierra Madre on Ren'ai Jiao, and the Chinese side allowed the Philippine side to transport daily necessities for the staff on the ship, etc., openly exposing Marcos Jr.'s lie that he refused to "admit his account". In addition, he severely criticized Marcos Jr.'s blindly pro-US foreign policy and exposed the fact that Marcos Jr. has become a "puppet" of the United States. Reading between the lines, there is no secret of his dissatisfaction with Marcos Jr.
[Former Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, Pantaleón Alvarez]
It is worth noting that Duterte's supporters also held a large rally to oppose Marcos Jr.'s proposal to amend the constitution. At the rally, Duterte's staunch ally, former House Speaker Alvarez, publicly called for the Philippine military to rise up and overthrow the Marcos Jr. government in order to prevent a possible war and its potentially more serious consequences. This explosive rhetoric of openly calling for a "rebellion" undoubtedly ignited Marcos' sense of insecurity.
In order to keep his presidency and move the "big stone" of the Duterte family, Marcos also took a series of "counterattack actions", among which Sarah, who was not so strong, became Marcos's primary "knife" target.
During his recent visit to the United States for the trilateral summit, Marcos made unusual moves. Instead of leaving the current vice president, who is also Duterte's daughter Sarah, to act as president alone, as he has done in the past, he has arranged for two trusted officials to remain in Manila and form a "caretaker body" with the vice president to handle domestic affairs together.
You must know that during Marcos's previous 25 foreign visits, Vice President Sarah handled the affairs of the Philippines on behalf of the president. But this time, Marcos made a point of keeping two of his cronies behind, nominally hoping that they would be able to perform auxiliary functions to help Sarah relieve the pressure, but in fact it may have been to spy on Sarah and prevent the Duterte family from usurping the throne.
[The first lady of the Philippines and Sarah publicly turned faces]
Recently, Sarah's situation has become even more difficult. Not long ago, Marcos's wife, Lisa, publicly stated to the media that she had a conflict with Sarah. When Duterte publicly denounced Marcos' drug use and called on him to step down, Vice President Sarah did not speak out in support of her political partner, instead smiling and applauding at the scene, she said. Lisa sees this as a mockery and disrespect to Marcos, and is therefore resentful of Sarah. In various public appearances recently, it can be clearly seen that Lisa has been embarrassing Sarah. Not only did she deliberately ignore Sarah, but she even deliberately put on a cold face, ignoring Sarah, and often made Sarah unable to get off the stage in public.
In addition, Philippine lawmakers have recently publicly impeached Sarah, saying that she has ignored Duterte's "insults and attacks" against the Philippine president, and has not achieved anything in the work of the Ministry of Education, and demanded that she resign "to set the record straight." Today, Sarah seems to be very unpopular in the Philippine political arena dominated by Marcos.
This can't help but remind people of what happened to Vice President Robredo when Lao Du was in office. Because of his disagreement with Lao Du's politics, Robredo suffered cold violence for a long time, and then was kicked out of the cabinet, although his vice presidential position was not deprived, but he was no longer in the Philippine political arena at that time. Sarah today may have to go through a similar experience.
[Duterte was publicly criticized by the Philippine media]
At the same time, Duterte himself has not been able to avoid the blow. Earlier, the Philippine media released an editorial severely criticizing Duterte, which was so harsh that Duterte not only labeled Duterte a "puppet of China" and a "traitor", but even said something like "Duterte just didn't kneel down to China". In addition, Marcos recently referred to the ICJ's investigation of Duterte, although he said he would not hand Duterte before the ICC. But this is a hint to Duterte that he could be brought to an international tribunal at any time.
Now that the Philippine military has gone to Duterte's "doorstep" to carry out a large-scale clean-up campaign, it is no less than driving the gun directly to Duterte's head, and at present, the situation of the old Du father and daughter is quite bad, and the top priority at the moment is to keep a low profile, avoid the limelight for the time being, and do not let Marcos find an excuse to stir up trouble.