Keywords: Duterte, Marcos, 2022 elections, national security, civilmilitary Relations

Introduction

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. won 58 per cent of the vote in the 2022 presidential elections and his running mate, Sara Duterte, daughter of his predecessor, won 61 per cent. This victory would not have been possible without the seismic shifts of President Rodrigo Duterte's policies. While many of Duterte's statements and actions during his term were controversial, he remained popular in the eyes of the public, garnering the highest approval ratings of any president since 1986. However, not everything the Duterte administration enacted remained well-received. The more consequential effects that have taken the public eye are the impacts of the previous administration's policies on the COVID-19 pandemic and China.

The Duterte administration will probably go down in history as one whose reputation is mixed. On the international stage, he turned the Philippines away from its longstanding ally, the United States and pivoted towards China, a rival claimant state in the South China Sea. President Duterte notably acted in a manner contrary to his predecessor, the late President Benigno Aquino III. This, in and of itself, is not a surprising development given the pendulum nature of Philippine foreign policy. What is noteworthy is Duterte's public calling out of historical grievances and negative personal experiences with the United States, contributing to his antagonistic view towards it. To further spurn the United States, Duterte turned to China, which has since 1995 been a frequent intruder in Philippine waters and, in recent years, has become a great power openly challenging the United States for regional primacy. He described this as the Philippines enacting an “independent” foreign policy and trying to balance relations. Sidestepping the external security threat of China for most of his term, President Duterte then shifted security focus internally—a marked about-face from the Aquino administration considering that tensions in the South China Sea have been unresolved since 2012. This resulted in three “wars” or local campaigns against drugs, terrorism, and the communist insurgency.