The size of the 2022 victory, not the strength of a famous surname, is what Davao City 1st District Rep. Paolo “Pulong” Duterte put at the center of his rebuttal to the President this week.
Writing on Monday, the lawmaker argued that Ferdinand Marcos Jr. owes the scale of his win to his then-running mate. “Because the truth is simple—without Sara Duterte, you would not have won by the margin that you did. The UniTeam coalition delivered votes from north to south. History will always show that your victory was built not on the Marcos name, but on the trust and support commanded by Vice President Sara Duterte,” he wrote.
The remarks answered a recent assertion by Marcos, made in an interview with Bloomberg Television, that pairing with the Vice President had not been a misjudgment. The President said the choice still made sense given the circumstances of the time, even as the two leaders have since become bitter rivals.
Marcos and Sara Duterte ran together under the UniTeam banner in 2022, capturing the presidency and vice presidency by commanding margins over their opponents. Their partnership has since fractured, with the Vice President resigning her Cabinet post in 2024 and later facing a second impeachment complaint in the Marcos-allied House of Representatives — one of whose grounds involved her statement about a plot to kill the President.
Pulong Duterte, a brother of the Vice President, has remained among the family’s vocal defenders as the feud between the two camps has deepened.
