DAVAO City Acting Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte said that the administration of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has allowed a foreign country to meddle in the affairs of the Philippines and that the country has returned to a time where there is a huge gap in wealth between the elite and the masses.
“The country itself has also drifted back to where it once was: maintaining a stark wealth gap in which the elites and the petite bourgeoisie defend the existing order, while the masses are treated less as citizens than as livestock to be managed and harvested for their benefit,” Duterte said in a statement on November 29, 2025.
The acting mayor also said that the system of the country does not protect the citizens and deter crime; rather, it is an order in which the law, the economy, and even foreign ‘partnerships’ are arranged to preserve the comfort of the rich and continue to exploit the lower class.
“The message is clear: the machinery of the state can still move with great force, but not against those who built, benefit from, and now carefully maintain it, only against those left to bear its weight,” he said.
He also highlighted how the US has a deep interest in shaping the foreign policy of the Philippines, noting that the the country is willing to weaponize international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) to suppress resistance to neocolonial dynamics while advancing their strategic and political interests.
He said that these foreign powers remain outside the ICC, and by doing so, they preserve the freedom to intervene in the affairs of other countries while defending themselves from scrutiny on their actions, as well as policies that would amount to complicity in large-scale atrocities such as genocide.
Duterte said that recently, the presence of foreign powers was felt in the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), which was formed by the president, claiming that its formation reinforces the impression that foreigners see themselves as saviors and that the “imperial posture” should be the template for the Philippines.
He said that the pattern is simple and that the law is enforced unevenly, with the vulnerable remain exposed. This conduct, he said, considered brutal and inhumane is treated as tolerable.
“What is striking is the apparent indifference of many of the very institutions and individuals who are supposed to defend the Constitution and protect the public interest; their lack of visible urgency raises the question of whom the system is really designed to serve,” he said.
Duterte also observed the recent developments in the country where there is a downward trajectory, and this started when foreign diplomats from the United States of America and other Western countries welcomed the release of high-profile figures linked to the drug crisis, which he described as a turning point.
Duterte said that the Philippines’ environment has shifted back to a time when illegal drugs were pervasive, predatory actors moved with relative confidence, and the practical risk of accountability felt low for those with power or connections.
He expressed that what the country is seeing is the stealing of hard-earned taxes; however, the community continues to absorb and normalize the situation and simply move on.
He also lamented about his father, former president Rodrigo Roa Duterte (FPRRD), who fought against drugs and criminality, being treated as a villain rather than an individual who responded to a real problem.
He then questioned when being “at war with drugs” began to be framed as a detrimental stance for society while the trade and the beneficiaries of drugs are “normalized.” RGP