News

What We're Watching: Duterte family drama in the Philippines

What We're Watching: Duterte family drama in the Philippines
Rodrigo Duterte, President of the Philippines, and his daughter Sara arrive at the Imperial Palace to attend the enthronement ceremony in Tokyo on October 22, 2019.
REUTERS/The Yomiuri Shimbun

Duterte telenovela. The daughter of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will run next year for vice president... while her dad will seek a Senate seat. The term-limited senior Duterte had threatened to run against her, but changed his mind again at the eleventh hour. (The president — who faces legal action over his bloody drug war unless his successor declines to prosecute him — was initially going to run alongside his daughter, but then dropped out because he said most Filipinos were against it.) Meanwhile, although the country elects presidents and VPs separately, Sara Duterte will be on a de-facto ticket with Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son of the former dictator and allied with the Dutertes. Expect more drama during the campaign from the Dutertes and other big names in the Philippines, where politics is deeply personal and parties serve as mere vehicles for individuals with high name recognition. With boxer-turned-senator Manny Pacquiao also running in a very crowded field, buckle up for an epic battle to replace Duterte in May 2022.

More For You

Geoffrey Hinton, the ‘Godfather of AI,’ joins Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast to talk about how the technology he helped build could transform our lives… and also threaten our very survival.

- YouTube

Is the AI jobs apocalypse upon us? On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer breaks down the confusing indicators in today’s labor market and how both efficiency gains as well as displacement from AI will affect the global workforce.

Members of the Uyghurs diaspora gather in front of Alberta Legislature during the protest 'Stand in Support of East Turkistan' to commemorate the 1990 Barin Uprising, on April 6, 2024, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The East Turkestan independence movement seeks the region's independence for the Uyghur people from China. They advocate renaming the region from Xinjiang to East Turkestan, its historical name.
Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto

Remember Xinjiang? There was a time, not long ago, when China’s crackdown on the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group living in Xinjiang province in Northwestern China, was a hot topic. But these days the attention has faded.