MANILA – Ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump’s assumption of power, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has purged the country’s most powerful pro-Beijing figures from the National Security Council (NSC).
In an Executive Order (EO) signed in the final hours of 2024, Marcos Jr instructed the removal of both Vice President Sara Duterte and former President Rodrigo Duterte from the country’s top national security decision-making body. Other Duterte-friendly political figures were also purged from the security agency.
Meanwhile, Marcos Jr expanded the presence of key figures from the Philippine Congress, which is headed by his cousin and right-hand man, House Speaker Martin Romualdez. The Malacañang Palace justified the move due to the “need to further guarantee that the NSC remains a resilient national security institution, capable of adapting to evolving challenges and opportunities both domestically and internationally.”
Crucially, the newly signed executive order also underscored the necessity of “ensur[ing] that its council members uphold and protect national security and sovereignty, thereby fostering an environment conducive to effective governance and stability.”
The high-stakes decision comes on the heels of hot and festering disputes between the Dutertes and Marcoses, with Vice President Sara Duterte even publicly threatening the life of the incumbent if she were to be assassinated while former President Duterte has insulted and even agitated for a potential coup against his democratically elected successor.
The NSC reshuffle also comes ahead of a potentially seismic transformation of the Philippine-US alliance, as a seemingly more hawkish second Trump administration is expected to corral allies in an intensified New Cold War with China in the region.
For the past two decades, former presidents have been honorary members of the NSC – a nod to their experience, prior access to privileged information and residual influence as major public figures.
Institutionalized inclusion of and consultation with former presidents also facilitated a degree of consensus among the political elite on matters of national security. Meanwhile, incumbent vice presidents have served as part of the NSC’s Executive Committee, the core group that corrals interagency responses to key national security issues.
Previously, Vice President Sara Duterte, who had eyed the Department of National Defense before getting appointed as education secretary, also served as the vice-chair of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTG-ELCAC), the primary body in charge of addressing domestic insurgencies.
Now, the Dutertes find themselves removed from all vital decision-making bodies, with Sara Duterte also forced to relinquish her post as the secretary of education earlier this year.
Moreover, the vice president faces impeachment complaints from both opposition figures as well as Marcos-friendly elements in Congress while former president Duterte is under investigation for his controversial “drug war”, which claimed the lives of tens of thousands of suspected drug dealers and users during his six-year tenure.
Confronting an existential crisis, the Dutertes have lashed back by actively threatening the government, organizing anti-Marcos rallies and even allegedly conspiring to unseat Marcos Jr through extraconstitutional means.
The ex-president has openly called for “People Power” against his successor, harkening to the massive protests that unseated the late Ferdinand Marcos Sr dictatorship. More recently, he has come just short of endorsing a military coup against Marcos Jr.
“You can’t go to the Supreme Court because it is a long process. You can’t trust the Congress because (Speaker Martin) Romualdez is under Marcos’ helm,” Duterte said in a press conference in late-November amid escalating tensions with the administration.
Accusing the incumbent of being “addicted to illegal substances”, the former president implied that military intervention may be the only way to resolve the impasse. “How does the military protect the Constitution? By protecting a ‘drug addict’ President?…If you want a redress of grievance, there is no urgent remedy. It is only the military who can correct it,” he added.
Meanwhile, former generals and servicemen aligned to the Dutertes have also signaled their discontent and joined up with various civil society groups that have criticized the Marcos Jr administration’s newly passed budget, which has been riddled with controversies.
Amid growing political tensions and public discontent, there is now an open discussion over the establishment of a “revolutionary government.”
“If we don’t succeed, the ‘Revolutionary Government’ will succeed,” former Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, a leading voice on matters of foreign policy and good governance, told the author in a recent panel discussion.
“There are two forces right now. It’s a race in showing to the people whether things can be done within the constitutional order. Those for rev gov have given up already, they are gaining momentum, there is no hope. These are now the two main forces in Philippine politics because they don’t believe that the present system should continue.”
Meanwhile, the Marcos Jr administration is now on the hot frontline of a festering great power rivalry in Asia. Packed with hawkish figures, the incoming second Trump administration could press the Philippines to host more advanced American weapon systems and more directly contribute to deterring any potential war in nearby Taiwan.
When asked about the Philippines’ strategic position, Elbridge Colby, the incoming Undersecretary for Policy at the Pentagon and a key architect of Trump’s National Defense Strategy in 2018, told this author that “[h]alf-measures are dangerous [because] hedging doesn’t make sense [when] you are too important [as a frontline ally to America]” in face of China’s growing assertiveness in adjacent waters.
Incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, has also made it clear that the Philippines will be core to America’s regional policy, especially vis-à-vis containing China.
Faced with rising domestic opposition and geopolitical uncertainty, the Marcos Jr administration is streamlining its bureaucracy and sensitive decision-making bodies. The Dutertes’ removal from the NSC is a deliberate effort to curb Beijing’s influence on key Philippine government positions, if not access to confidential information.
Last November, former president Duterte openly demanded in a letter to National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano to include his daughter in vital national security meetings and, accordingly, even provide minutes of policy discussions. Viewing the Dutertes as proxies of China, key figures within the Marcos Jr administration saw their purge from the National Security Council as a top priority.
“If China successfully divides a target country, it can achieve victory [without paying any major price],” former Rear Admiral Rommel Jude Ong told this author when asked about Beijing’s potential exploitation of the current political crisis in the Philippines.
“I’m very concerned about our domestic politics, and [accordingly] interference [by China],” the former admiral added, emphasizing the Philippines’ centrality to the emerging US-China rivalry as well as Beijing’s potential forcible reunification with the self-ruling island of Taiwan.
“[China] must neutralize the Philippines. Because it complicates [its Taiwan] calculation. In military parlance, if [China’s] main effort is Taiwan, then secondary effort is [focused on] Japan and the Philippines. We are in the way of China’s plans on Taiwan. They have to neutralize the Philippines politically and economically to make sure we are no long a factor,” he added, referring to the Marcos Jr administration’s decision to grant the US expanded military access to northern bases facing Taiwan.
“Whatever action we take, it disrupts their plans on Taiwan. The low-hanging fruit is to get someone friendly [back] in charge of the Philippines. That’s why foreign interference is going to be their main effort rather than kinetic or physical in the South China Sea [against the Philippines],” he added.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on X at @RichHeydarian
