Category World News

In a potential last-ditch bid to save his family’s faltering political dynasty, former president Rodrigo Duterte has registered to run for the former mayor of the southern Philippine city of Davao.

After his family’s alliance with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. began to deteriorate, the former president’s influence has decreased. His brutal “war on drugs” led to thousands of extrajudicial killings.

Duterte’s son, current Davao Mayor Sebastian Duterte, will be his father’s running mate.

Marcos Jr.’s successful presidential campaign was supported by the powerful political family in 2022, but the relationship between the two families has since broken down.

Sara Duterte, vice president, resigned from her position as education secretary in June and lost influence within the Marcos administration. She was once seen as a potential replacement for her father.

Her 79-year-old father is running for mayor as part of a global investigation into extrajudicial killings committed during the drug war. The ICC may issue a warrant of arrest later this year, according to lawyer Kristina Conti last month.

Duterte remains popular in Davao, long the family stronghold, but even there, his influence may be waning.

Apollo Quiboloy, a long-time Duterte ally and religious leader, was detained last month by Philippine authorities after being hid in a city compound. He is accused of child trafficking in both the Philippines and the United States. Marcos Jr.’s arrest was seen as a coup against the Dutertes.

Quiboloy, who calls himself the “Appointed Son of God”, announced on Tuesday that he would run for Senate in next year’s election.

“After Quiboloy’s arrest, the possibility of arresting]Duterte] through Interpol and local police that is outside the control of the Dutertes seems more likely”, said Tyrone Velez, a columnist for the local publication MindaNews.

Failed drug war

Sebastian Duterte announced in March that he would continue the drug war that his father had started. He had been mayor of Davao for about 20 years before taking the presidency and was known as “The Punisher” for his brutal policies. In the ensuing days, at least seven drug suspects were killed in police encounters.

Not long after Marcos Jr. responded, the Dutertes perceived the resumption of the drug war as a defiance act.

Hundreds of other police officers were fired in May from Davao police chief Richard Bad-ang, a close Duterte ally who had just been appointed to the position just before the killings. A probe into the seven deaths has also been announced by the regional police office in Davao.

After being replaced three times in a single day in a process deemed politically motivated by Sebastian Duterte, a new police chief was finally appointed in July.

Drug killings have decreased – but have not stopped – in the Philippines since Marcos Jr took power, and in recent months, he has called for a “bloodless” drug war.

According to the Dahas Project, an initiative of the University of the Philippines that tracks extrajudicial drug killings, 63 people were killed in the central region of Cebu in 2024 during anti-drug operations.

The Davao Police fatally shot a suspected drug dealer on September 17, marking the city’s first drug-related fatality since March, according to the Dahas Project.

Following criticism for his “lackadaisical leadership” and frequent absences from City Hall, Velez claimed that Sebastian Duterte probably wanted to restart the drug war to bolster his support there.

Velez, who uses a well-known nickname for Rodrigo Duterte, said, “His camp must have thought restarting the drug war might make him a Digong 2.0 and make him relevant.” However, it was postponed a week later.

As the world became aware of a potential ICC arrest warrant, the killings also occurred.

In 2019, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC. However, the court has since stated that it still has jurisdiction over alleged crimes, which means Duterte could still face charges for committing thousands of murders.

Closing in

According to Velez, removing pro-Duterte police officers has given Marcos Jr more control over drug operations and given them more authority, even within Davao.

“The Marcoses want police officers who are not influenced by the Dutertes in both the city and the Davao region.”

According to Aries Arugay, chairperson of the University of the Philippines’ Department of Political Science, Marcos’ national influence has “waned” in recent months due to the administration’s push to expel Quiboloy-like members of the government.

Quiboloy, who was Duterte’s spiritual adviser during his presidency, is himself a longtime player in Philippine politics. He supported Duterte’s 2016 campaign, lending the candidate his private jet, and supported Marcos Jr in 2022.

But as the Duterte-Marcos alliance frayed, Quiboloy used his television network, Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), to broadcast misinformation and attack the Dutertes’s critics.

In 2023, SMNI’s YouTube channel was taken down by Google and its broadcast licence suspended by the Philippines’s telecommunications commission. SMNI’s Facebook page was also no longer available. Quiboloy asserted earlier this year that Marcos Jr. and his wife, Liza, were planning an assassination against Washington without any proof. Marcos rejected the allegations.

After organizing hundreds of his supporters’ human barricades to thwart searches inside the compound of his church, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, Quiboloy, 74, was finally detained after a week-long operation.

After the domestic criminal case is over, Marcos Jr. has indicated that he is prepared to extradite Quiboloy to the United States.

According to Arugay, the Marcos administration wants to “transmit that they are serious about working with the US in a more thorough and comprehensive manner.” “He]Marcos] doesn’t want to be seen as weak”.

Quiboloy’s arrest and Duterte’s decision to run for mayor&nbsp, have put Duterte and Marcos Jr on a collision course ahead of the country’s May 2025 congressional elections.

However, polls suggest Filipinos may be getting sick of the political feuds, and voters lack alternatives. According to a survey conducted by Pulse Asia last week, Marcos Jr.’s approval rating dropped three points to 50%, while Sara Duterte’s approval rating dropped by nine points to 60%.

“Filipinos do not like what they’re seeing, that they’re fighting and not working together”, said Cleve Arguelles, chief executive of the polling firm WR Numero Research.

The mayor of Alejandro Arcos, who was found decapitated over the weekend, was found dead over the weekend, according to new information from the Mexican government.

The country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, is under increasing pressure to halt cartel-related violence under the guise of her administration’s response to Arcos’ murder, which occurred almost a week after her election.

Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch stated to reporters on Tuesday that Arcos, a well-known opposition figure, had not requested any security escorts on the day of his death.

Garcia Harfuch referred to a town in Guerrero’s coastal state as “the mayor was going to Petaquillas for a meeting alone.”

“We know that he was going to a specific meeting, he was not accompanied, communication was lost in the community, and the discovery]of his body] was made hours later”.

Despite rumors that the mayor had told local media he wanted extra protection, the minister asserted that Arcos had not approached the Ministry of Security or the National Guard for assistance.

Garcia Harfuch also emphasized that the death investigation for Arcos was still being conducted. He said, “We must keep a lot of information on this subject in mind for the purposes of the investigation.”

A week into office

Arcos’s death comes less than a week after he took office on September 30 as mayor of Chilpancingo, Guerrero’s capital city.

Guerrero has long been a hub for the production of opium poppies, the main ingredient in heroin, thanks to its remote mountains and temperate Pacific climate.

As many as 16 drug-trafficking gangs operate in the state, vying for control over the lucrative region.

The local government has also been openly challenged by the armed gangs, most prominently in 2023.

Taus of protesters took to the streets to demand the release of two alleged Los Ardillos gang members after their arrests.

In Chilpancingo, they engaged in physical combat with police and members of the National Guard, even breaking through the state legislature’s gates with an armored vehicle. During the unrest, several officials were taken hostage.

Arcos was headed to meet members of the Los Ardillos gang on Sunday, the day of his death, according to Reforma, a Mexican news outlet.

However, soon afterward, images of Arcos’ severed head perched atop what appeared to be his pickup truck started to appear on social media.

A member of the municipal government was found dead for the second time in less than a week. Just three days prior, Francisco Tapia, another newly minted member of the city government, was shot to death.

Elections marred by violence

On Tuesday, Garcia Harfuch revealed that four other mayors — from Guerrero and another state, Guanajuato — had appealed for protection following Arcos’s death.

Political violence has plagued Mexico for years as cartels and other gangs try to control local government affairs.

This year, the country held its largest election in history, with nearly 20, 000 public offices up for grabs, including local, state and federal positions.

But the proceedings were marred by violence: An estimated 37 candidates were killed in the lead-up to the vote, many of them seeking local office. In other cases, the relatives of candidates were killed, in apparent intimidation attempts.

Some candidates were forced to withdraw due to the violence. For protection, other people were given National Guard members.

In the wake of Arcos’s death, public officials voiced frustration and anger at the ongoing violence.

On social media, Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado Pineda wrote, “I strongly condemn the murder of the Municipal President of Chilpancingo, Alejandro Arcos Catalán.” His death afflicts the entire Guerrero society and indignifies us all.

Alejandro Moreno, the head of Arcos’s conservative-leaning party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said on Monday, “We will not allow his death to go unpunished”.

Sheinbaum’s security strategy

As government officials grappled with the fallout from Arcos’s death on Tuesday, President Sheinbaum — herself inaugurated on September 30 — revealed her proposals to bolster Mexico’s security.

A member of the left-leaning Morena Party, she ruled out a return to hardline tactics. “The war on drugs will not return”, she said, citing a controversial United States-led initiative.

Sheinbaum echoed her predecessor, the popular Morena leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in calling for measures that address the root causes of crime, like poverty.

She added that the government of her country would not use excessive force to combat crime. The Mexican military and law enforcement have long been accused of carrying out extrajudicial killings and even cooperating with the cartels.

“We are not looking for extrajudicial executions, which is what was happening before”, Sheinbaum said. What will we employ? Prevention, attention to the causes, intelligence and]law enforcement] presence”.

In an effort to win over voters in the final weeks of the US presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris has increased her media appearances and given interviews to both big and small outlets.

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, The View, and veteran broadcaster Howard Stern, who was once a friend of former President Donald Trump, were also given interviews by the Democratic nominee on Tuesday.

Early in her campaign for the presidency, Harris faced criticism for failing to make a major media appearance.

She made the announcement for her presidential campaign on July 21; more than a month later, on August 29, she gave her first television interview since beginning her campaign.

Her media strategy was subject to scrutiny due to that gap. Veteran media critic Margaret Sullivan, for instance, wrote in The Guardian newspaper that Harris had an obligation to tell the US public “in an unscripted, open way” what she stands for.

“Harris should show that she understands that, in a democracy, the press – at least in theory – represents the public, and that the sometimes adversarial relationship between the press and government is foundational”, Sullivan said.

Additionally, surveys have indicated that the electorate wants to know more about the Democratic nominee.

According to a survey conducted by Siena College and The New York Times in September, up to 28% of voters surveyed felt they wanted to learn more about Harris.

Harris’ campaign reacted to criticism with a slew of media appearances last week. She is currently locked in a tight race with Trump, the Republican nominee, heading into the November 5 election.

What was billed as Harris’ first live solo interview with The View was a part of her scurry across platforms and networks on Tuesday.

Harris closely matched the retiring Democratic President Joe Biden when she addressed the panel of women on the talk show. After being questioned about his age and ability, Harris stepped down as the party’s nominee.

Harris claimed that she had no idea what choice she would have made with the exception of Biden.

“We’re obviously two different people”, Harris said, adding that “I will bring those sensibilities to how I lead”.

When asked where she might have diverged from Biden if she had been in charge, Harris responded, “There is not a thing that comes to mind.”

Harris’s appearance with Stern, a radio host, also came with another first: Media critics believe it is her longest uninterrupted interview since becoming the Democratic nominee.

When she spoke to Stern, Harris took shots at Trump, who had a public falling-out with the radio host.

She and Stern once discussed how Trump has repeatedly said that he will accept the election results in 2024 even if he loses.

Mimicking the former president, Stern said: “‘ If I win, it’s a fair election. If I lose, Kamala Harris and her buddies fixed it. ‘” He summed up that viewpoint by saying, “That’s delusional”.

“In America, we call that a sore loser”, Harris responded.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Trump used his regular appearance on the shock jock’s radio show to further his New York tabloid success.

He once claimed as his “personal Vietnam” to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.

Harris appeals to Republicans

Following a well-known interview with 60 Minutes, the oldest television newsmagazine in the US, on Monday, Tuesday’s cavalcade of interviews arrived.

On 60 Minutes, Harris suggested that a number of Republicans agreed with her views, especially about economic issues.

“You know that many people in Congress are aware of what I’m talking about because their constituents are those firefighters, teachers, and nurses,” she said.

Her appearance on 60 Minutes was meant to be half of an election-season special: The news programme had invited Trump to interview as well, and he accepted.

Trump, however, abruptly resisted leaving the interview just before it was scheduled to be recorded, according to a news release.

The hosts Scott Pelley and Scott Pelley have a tradition of hosting 60 Minutes in October for more than 50 years.

Pelley explained that the Trump team offered “shifting explanations” for the cancellation, including objecting to the on-air fact-checking of his statements.

“Trump has said his opponent doesn’t do interviews because she can’t handle them. He had previously declined another debate with Harris”, Pelley said on Monday.

“So, between now and Election Day, the candidates may have had the largest audience tonight.”

Hitting the battleground states is more crucial.

Polls indicate that Harris and Trump are in a very close race.

Harris currently enjoys 48.6 percent of support nationwide, while Trump receives 45.9, which is within the margin of error, according to the poll-tracking website FiveThirtyEight. Wisconsin and Georgia are similarly close to polls for the nearly half-dozen swing states.

Political analysts speculated that the Harris campaign’s initial goal was to tour and rally those battleground states before appearing in interviews with the media.

After all, she and her running mate Tim Walz experienced a flurry of public support shortly after releasing their ticket.

However, both Harris and Walz have turned to media appearances to maintain their momentum as the novelty has faded.

This week, for instance, Harris recorded a session of the Call Her Daddy podcast with Alex Cooper, which has a huge social media following: Two million people follow the podcast on Instagram alone.

Call Her Daddy, which is said to be the most well-known podcast for women in America, gave Harris a chance to discuss how “voters are frustrated and just exhausted with politics in general.”

“Why should we trust you”? Cooper asked.

“You can look at my career to know what I care about”, Harris responded.

She continued, “I care about ensuring that people are given the freedoms they deserve.” I care about escorting people and ensuring your safety.