Opinion | Can Philippine political coalition 1Sambayan best Duterte’s allies at next year’s presidential election?

A new political coalition in the Philippines seeking to challenge the ruling party ahead of next year’s presidential election foreshadows how foreign policy and security issues could loom large on the campaign trail.

The 1Sambayan coalition was convened in March by, among others, three prominent critics of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte – retired Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, former Secretary of Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario and former Ombudswoman Conchita Carpio-Morales. The coalition has criticised Duterte for being too cosy with Beijing, and insisted he enforce an arbitration ruling from 2016 that essentially invalidated China’s maritime claims in most of the disputed South China Sea in favour of the Philippines. Carpio and del Rosario have also advocated for Manila to join US-led freedom of navigation patrols as a way of asserting the arbitration award.

In 2019, del Rosario and Morales – with Carpio as their legal counsel – filed a complaint before the International Criminal Court accusing China’s President Xi Jinping and other ranking Chinese officials of “crimes against humanity” for marine environment destruction in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The petition was rejected as Beijing is not a state party to the Rome Statute by which the court was established.

With 1Sambayan positioning itself as diametrically opposed to the present government on everything from the territorial and maritime row to wider relations with China, other legacies of the Duterte administration are now on the line. These include its controversial war on drugs and contentious approach to counter-insurgency which saw a new anti-terrorism law passed last year, as well as Beijing’s involvement in the administration’s flagship “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure programme.

Yet uniting the opposition under a single umbrella is no easy feat. While bilateral ties between Manila and Beijing have been marred by the recent massing of Chinese vessels in the Philippines’ waters, it will take more than a maritime flashpoint to galvanise the opposition. Bringing together several big names and political parties to form a united front against Duterte’s anointed slate is a tall order given the fractious nature of domestic politics. Despite the country’s long democratic tradition, even the institution of political parties remains weak, with switching parties before or immediately after elections being fairly common. Elections are also infamously reduced to clashes of personalities rather than that of political parties and platforms. Next year’s national and local elections require 1Sambayan to field a line-up with the broadest backing to stand a chance.

To win, the coalition will need to go beyond security and foreign policy, which remain abstract to most of the electorate. Mounting frustration over the state’s pandemic response and the recession the unprecedented global health crisis left in its wake has more across-the-board appeal.

The government, for its part, can cite the coronavirus’ unpredictability to soften the blow, as even former pandemic success stories such as South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam – and affluent places with advanced health care systems such as Japan – have faced fresh waves of infection as new variants emerge.