Duterte allies pitch Senate slate as Sara's last line of defense

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February 14, 2025 | 3:00pm

MANILA, Philippines —  Chants of "Duterte! Duterte!" erupted louder than any senatorial candidate's name at PDP-Laban's proclamation rally yesterday, confirming what its nine electoral bets already know: the party's biggest campaign draw isn't even on the national ballot.

The party's Senate hopefuls, casting themselves as an embattled and cash-poor opposition, transformed Vice President Sara Duterte's looming impeachment trial into their rallying cry at the formal launch of their slate at Club Filipino in San Juan City on Thursday, February 13.

Their pitch to voters was straightforward. If the vice president's impeachment trial is held after the polls, the senators elected in May could be the crucial votes that will acquit Duterte and arrest her crumbling political future.

The party chaired by former President Rodrigo Duterte is fielding nine senatorial candidates: Senators Bato dela Rosa and Bong Go, former Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez, former officials Jayvee Hinlo and Raul Lambino, Rep. Rodante Marcoleta (SAGIP Partylist), musician Jimmy Bondoc, actor Phillip Salvador, and detained religious leader Apollo Quiboloy.

Vice President Sara Duterte, who was not present at the proclamation rally, endorsed the slate through a statement flashed on screen. Rodriguez's name was notably absent from an earlier version of the vice president's endorsement message, suggesting his inclusion was a last-minute addition to the lineup. 

Hounded by Sara Duterte's impeachment by the House of Representatives last month and stung by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s jab about candidates who seemed merely "sent to buy vinegar," PDP-Laban's senatorial slate appears to be heavily banking on the Duterte patriarch's political capital to shift the Senate numbers in their favor.

Three of the party's incumbent senators — Go, Dela Rosa, and party president Robin Padilla — laid bare their current predicament. They said they are outnumbered, outmaneuvered, and running out of ways to counter the administration's political agenda.

Nearly all of the party's candidates used their speeches to deliver a direct call for supporters to increase the vice president's allies in the Senate. At the tail end of his speech, Hinlo asked the crowd: "Gusto niyo bang ma-impeach si [Vice President] Sara Duterte?" 

WATCH: Senatorial candidate Jayvee Hinlo says the vice president needs more allies in the Senate. He asks the audience: “Gusto nyo bang matanggal si VP Sara?” @philstarnews pic.twitter.com/vrX62cz3hM

— Cristina Chi ???? (@chicristina_) February 13, 2025

"We can't do anything no matter how much we try," Dela Rosa said in Filipino. 

"'Objection your honor, Mr. President'... But because it's a numbers game, majority rules," Dela Rosa said. "That's why we need your support."

Irked by Marcos, PDP-Laban slate calls themselves 'Team Suka'  

Marcos did not name names when he mocked candidates who appeared merely "sent to buy vinegar" at the launch of his endorsed candidates earlier this week.

But Duterte's allies readily claimed the insult as being directed at them. 

"Go ahead, call us Team Suka," Dela Rosa said. "What matters is we're the ones making life more flavorful for the poor."

Rodriguez, who served as Marcos's campaign spokesperson before their public falling out in 2022, also criticized his former superior. "We'll fight Team Sinusuka. The vinegar fights fake gold," he said, adding with deliberate emphasis, "I have a diploma and finished college." 

Marcoleta, meanwhile, turned the vinegar metaphor into an indictment of the administration: "We know why basic goods are so expensive in our country. Those who don't use vinegar, they don't understand. We can smell the corruption, we just smell like vinegar. But they don't even notice it, because many of them are involved."

The slate's responses to Marcos also went beyond the vinegar taunt. When the president suggested some candidates had blood on their hands from the drug war, Dela Rosa also bristled.

"If our hands are stained with blood, I'm not ashamed. It's the blood of criminals." The former police chief even suggested, to approving cheers, that perhaps tokhang — the controversial door-to-door drug war campaign — should be their electoral strategy.

Throughout the speeches, the candidates' pointed jabs at the president drew scattered cries of "Bangag!" from the crowd.

The elder Duterte, whose presence loomed large through countless posters and merchandise bearing his image, delivered the day's final salvos. 

He repeated allegations about Marcos's supposed abuse of illegal substances and briefly dismissed criticism of his administration's bloody drug war with characteristic bluntness: "Why call them extrajudicial killings? There was nothing extra about them," the former president said in Filipino.

Duterte nostalgia

PDP-Laban's proclamation rally on Thursday saw its candidates staking their Senate bid on nostalgia for the Duterte years to overcome both the fresh controversies that have hounded the vice president and the dwindling number of politicians who still stand behind a Duterte alliance.

RELATED: Sara Duterte silent on option to resign amid impeachment preps

The party that once commanded the government's full machinery now operates from a different position after a series of party exits in the last two years. Dela Rosa, aware of this reality, made a thinly-veiled remark: 

"Where is the opposition? You are still here. You did not jump to the other side. You are not disowning us... Those are the people who have principles," Dela Rosa said.

Go crystallized the party's campaign message in his closing remarks: "The more allies we have in the Senate, the more we can help not just Duterte but the entire nation. Please, help our slate's candidates."