AS 2026 dawns, I had briefly considered stepping away from my usual rhythm of dissecting geopolitical decay and institutional autopsies. Having spent six of my eight decades confronting the machinery of bad governance, a certain occupational fatigue has set in. I once believed the martial law era was the pinnacle of predatory rule, never imagining such a state of affairs could be replicated. I was mistaken; history, it seems, has no aversion to a bad sequel, as evidenced by the son’s incumbency.

The current deluge of flood control scandals and the unbridled greed of public servants — who appear incapable of moderating their systemic looting — has left me intellectually exhausted. For the coming year, I intend to recalibrate. This is not a retreat, but a shift in perspective. I will let local infamies simmer until justice is served or a political reset occurs.

While year’s end usually invites hollow resolutions, I prefer the risk of prediction — not of markets, but of political trajectories. I focus on two men who steered democracies toward spectacle: Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte.

My prediction: Trump, increasingly unmoored and erratic, will be forced from the presidency before his term concludes. Meanwhile, Duterte, currently awaiting his reckoning in The Hague, will never see Philippine shores again. He is destined to spend his final days on foreign soil, a fading shadow of a decaying legacy.

Parallel paths of erosion

I begin the year by examining two figures who have shaped my geopolitical and local commentary: Donald Trump and Rodrigo Duterte. Though hailing from different hemispheres, their political architectures are eerily similar. Both rose to power by treating the rule of law as an inconvenience and institutional limits as optional.

Trump, America’s theatrical legal liability, and Duterte, Davao-bred architect of “shoot-first governance,” both represent a distinct pattern of democratic erosion. Their impact on their respective nations is not just a passing phase but an indelible stain on the political fabric.

This critique is not aimed at their followers — MAGA or DDS — but at the leaders’ shared imprudence. When heads of state transform institutions into mirrors of their own ego, accountability fractures. Whether it manifests as comedy or tragedy, the result is the same: democracy quietly hollows out from within.

Authoritarian by accident, felon by verdict

Trump treated his presidency like a reality show that never stopped filming. What started as a branding move ended in a long list of legal battles. He is the first US president to become a convicted felon, having been found guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York.

Beyond that, he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation and faces charges for trying to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents. While he claims these legal troubles are just unfair attacks for “loving America,” the records tell a different story. He has managed to bridge the gap between commander-in-chief and criminal defendant, spinning serious felony charges as if they were a badge of honor.

Trump’s authoritarianism is not ideological. It is incidental. It is what you get when a man with no respect for rules is handed an office built entirely on rules. He didn’t seek to dismantle democracy on purpose; he just didn’t think the rules applied to him.

This behavior did real damage. He turned basic facts into political food-fights and made people lose faith in elections. Instead of following the law, he governed through personal grievances and demanded total loyalty. He treated the Constitution like a suggestion rather than a boundary. In the end, he behaved like an autocrat not because he studied history — he is history-illiterate — but because he followed his own unchecked instincts, leaving the country more divided and cynical about the truth.

Authoritarian by design, now in The Hague

Duterte is a different strain of strongman. While Trump used chaos, Duterte used cold, calculated methods. He is currently under International Criminal Court custody for “crimes against humanity” in connection with the thousands of deaths in his war on drugs. Unlike leaders who use metaphors, Duterte’s public calls for violence were treated as official policy.

If Trump chipped away at democracy, Duterte took a chainsaw to it. He turned fear into a tool of the state, using the police and bureaucracy to normalize the killing of suspects without trial. Under his rule, neighborhoods became crime scenes.

The main difference is efficiency: Trump’s mistakes often slowed him down, but Duterte’s competence made his authoritarianism faster, deadlier and immediate. Even so, he remained popular. He convinced many that “strong leadership” meant a government that could act as judge, jury and executioner before breakfast.

Similar deadly styles

Trump and Duterte both weakened the systems meant to keep leaders in check. Trump attacked the courts and the press, while Duterte targeted human rights groups and the judiciary. Both demanded personal loyalty over the law, valuing their own authority more than legal rules.

They also used fear to control the public. Trump focused on outsiders and national decline, whereas Duterte focused on crime. By creating their own versions of reality and questioning facts, both leaders convinced people to fear external threats more than the loss of their own democratic rights and freedoms.

Strongman paradox, flourishing even when failing

The tragedy of modern strongmen isn’t just that they rise, but that they never truly leave. Even after losing elections or facing legal trouble, leaders like Trump and Duterte remain powerful figures. They survive by creating an illusion of order. Trump provides emotional order, where his followers feel like winners in a world of conspiracies. Duterte offers physical order, using intimidation and violence to make the streets feel “safe.”

One comforts his base with theories, the other with force. Both convince their supporters that democracy is actually safer in the hands of a leader who doesn’t respect it. They turn their personal power into a permanent part of the political landscape.

Legacy of weakened institutions

The true legacy of Trump and Duterte is a landscape of damaged institutions and broken civic trust. In the US, election faith has eroded and political violence has increased. In the Philippines, state-sponsored killings have become an accepted tool of power. Both nations are now struggling with a culture where the rules of democracy have been fundamentally altered.

Trump weakens democracy through constant falsehoods and spectacle, while Duterte erodes it through force and coercion. One acts through improvisation, the other by deliberate design. Despite these different methods, both lead their countries toward a lack of accountability.

Their rule serves as a warning: Democracies cannot survive when citizens trade their rights for performance or fear. While the institutions might still stand, the civic spirit required to sustain them has been deeply wounded. The cost of their leadership isn’t found in their speeches, but in the lasting damage done to their countries’ political fabric.

Trump and Duterte prove that democracy is fragile. Whether through spectacle or force, they convince citizens to trade accountability for the illusion of order. Their lasting legacy is a wounded civic culture where fear often outweighs the rule of law.

The Senate President crowed yesterday that the party he nominally coheads, PDP-Laban, has a “pleasant problem” — too many potential senatorial candidates. Koko Pimentel’s estimate is they have up to 20 possible choices for the 12-person slate for the 2019 senatorial race. But his list includes the five administration-affiliated senatorial incumbents up for reelection next year. This is a group that has made noises that, much as it prefers to remain in the administration camp, it is unhappy with the way PDP-Laban has been designating its local leaders and candidates, and therefore prefers to strike out on its own, perhaps in alliance with the other administration (regional) party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago, headed by the President’s daughter and current Davao City mayor, Sara Duterte.

Setting aside, then, the five-person “Force,” the administration-oriented but not PDP-friendly reelectionists (Nancy Binay, Sonny Angara, Cynthia Villar, Grace Poe, and JV Ejercito), what Koko’s crowing over is a mixed bag. Some of them have been floated by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (with whom Mayor Duterte clashed in recent months): six representatives (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who is in her last term in the House of Representatives; Albee Benitez, Karlo Nograles, Rey Umali, Geraldine Roman, and Zajid Mangudadatu), three Cabinet members (Bong Go, Harry Roque, and Francis Tolentino), and two other officials (Mocha Uson and Ronald dela Rosa), which still only adds up to 11 possible candidates (who are the missing three?).

Of all of these, the “Force” reelectionists are only fair-weather allies of the present dispensation; their setting themselves apart is about much more than the mess PDP-Laban made in, say, San Juan where support for the Zamoras makes it extremely unattractive for JV Ejercito to consider being in the same slate. Their cohesion is about thinking ahead: Creating the nucleus for the main coalition to beat in the 2022 presidential election. The contingent of congressmen and congresswomen who could become candidates for the Senate, however, seems more a means to kick the Speaker’s rivals upstairs (at least in the case of Benitez and Arroyo) and pad the candidates’ list with token but sacrificial candidates, a similar situation to the executive officials being mentioned as possible candidates (of the executive officials, only Go seems viable, but making him run would deprive the President of the man who actually runs the executive department, and would be a clear signal that the administration is shifting to a post-term protection attitude instead of the more ambitious system-change mode it’s been on, so far).

Vice President Leni Robredo has been more circumspect, saying she’s not sure the Liberal Party can even muster a full slate. The party chair, Kiko Pangilinan, denied that a list circulating online (incumbent Bam Aquino, former senators Mar Roxas, Jun Magsaysay, TG Guingona, current and former representatives Jose Christopher Belmonte, Kaka Bag-ao, Edcel Lagman, Raul Daza, Gary Alejano and Erin Tañada, former governor Eddie Panlilio and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña) had any basis in fact.

What both lists have in common is they could be surveys-on-the-cheap, trial balloons to get the public pulse. Until the 17th Congress reconvenes briefly from May 14 to June 1 for the tail end of its second regular session (only to adjourn sine die until the third regular session begins on July 23), it has nothing much to do. Except, that is, for the barangay elections in May, after a last-ditch effort by the House to postpone them yet again to October failed.

Names can be floated but the real signal will come in July, when the President mounts the rostrum and calls for the big push for a new constitution—or not. Connected to this would be whether the Supreme Court disposes of its own chief, which would spare the Senate—and thus, free up the legislative calendar—to consider Charter change instead of an impeachment trial. In the meantime, what congressmen do seem abuzz over is an unrefusable invitation to the Palace tomorrow — to mark Arroyo’s birthday. An event possibly pregnant with meaning.

Here’s a striking statement about love shared with me by an English college mentor. “Love knows no grammar. How it works can’t be measured by any parts or figures of speech. It goes beyond the literate and illiterate. The sad reality is that, even a fool who has got no philosophy is not spared of its harsh reality.” After almost three decades, I reminded him through a private message of his words. Here’s what he said. “Thank you, Jord. This statement about love is searing to the heart. And, yes, fools do fall for it too. But I thought that we as well speak of the beauty that it gives and not so much focus on the harsh realities. After all, our country has had enough of the negativities.” Thank you, dearest Sir Eugene.

In these decisive times when our nation trembles under the weight of corruption, inequality, and disillusionment, it is you―the youth, burning with idealism, courage, and an unyielding sense of right―who must stand at the forefront of CHANGE. The future of the Philippines hangs in the balance, calling not for silence or apathy, but for unity, conviction, and action. Let your dreams be the spark that ignites renewal; let your voices thunder against injustice; let your hands build the nation our forebears envisioned but never fulfilled. Now is the hour to awaken, to rise, and to lead the march toward a just and transformed Philippines.

Remember, the pages of our history resound with the triumphs of youth who dared to dream and act. From the Propagandists who wielded the pen against tyranny to the Katipuneros who took up arms for freedom, it was always the young who ignited revolutions and rebuilt nations. As Dr. Jose Rizal declared, “The youth is the hope of our motherland,” but that hope is not a gift to be passively claimed; it is a duty to be earned through courage and purpose.

Today’s generation must transform awareness into action―to confront corruption with integrity, to challenge inequality with empathy, and to counter apathy with participation. The time for mere commentary has passed. What the nation demands now is commitment, creativity, and collective resolve. When the youth stand united in conscience and conviction, no obstacle is insurmountable, no reform impossible. The power to redeem the nation’s promise lies not in the hands of the few, but in the awakened spirit of the many. Rise, therefore, as one generation with one objective―to forge a Philippines worthy of its people’s deepest hopes. And to those who were once the torchbearers of youth but have since laid down their fire―hear this call.

The nation does not forget its veterans of hope, those who once believed that change was possible but have since grown weary in the long twilight of disappointment. Thus far history grants no sanctuary to resignation. It demands of every generation the same unrelenting duty―to defend what is right, to confront what is wrong, and to labor still for what remains unfinished.

Now is the moment to rise again. Let not caution disguise itself as wisdom, nor comfort as peace. The courage that once stirred your youth still flickers within; rekindle it, and let it burn anew for the sake of those who follow. Your experience, tempered by time, must now join hands with the fervor of the young - to guide, to mentor, to strengthen.

Together, let the wisdom of the seasoned and the passion of the rising coalesce into a single, indomitable force for renewal. For the task of nation-building is not bound by age, but by conviction. The call of the motherland resounds to all who still believe that the story of the Filipino is not yet complete―and that redemption, though delayed, is still within our grasp if only we choose to act once more. And to those whose hands have long gripped the levers of power―hardened by privilege, dulled by entitlement―hear this with clarity: the era of self-preservation must yield to the dawn of selfless service.

The nation can no longer afford leaders who mistake possession for stewardship, nor governance for dominion. The time has come to relinquish the throne of complacency and make way for the custodians of vision, courage, and renewal.

To step aside is not to surrender, but to honor the sacred rhythm of nationhood―to allow new voices, new hearts, and new minds to breathe life into institutions that have grown stale from neglect. True leadership is an act of stewardship, and stewardship demands humility―to know when to lead, and when to pass the torch. Those who have ruled long enough must now become mentors, not masters; guides, not gatekeepers.

To the youth who will inherit this burden and blessing alike, the call is equally profound. Lead not with arrogance, but with awareness; not with impulse, but with integrity. Let optimism be your discipline―a conscious act of faith in the nation’s capacity to rise again. Lead with inclusivity that unites rather than divides, with courage that reforms rather than destroys, and with resilience that endures when hope seems frail.

For the measure of a new generation’s greatness lies not in its defiance alone, but in its wisdom to build where others have failed. Let your leadership become the living testament that the Philippines, once disillusioned, has learned at last to believe again―through you.

Now, the Filipino youth stand at a defining crossroad of history. The echoes of the past and the murmurs of the future converge upon this moment, and in your hands rests the fragile, however formidable promise of a nation reborn. You are the inheritors of unfinished dreams and the architects of what is yet to be. United in thought and deed, strengthened by the wisdom of history and the fire of conviction, you possess the power to shape a Philippines anchored in justice, animated by democracy, and sustained by the collective flourishing of its people.

The mantle of responsibility has passed to you. Do not falter beneath its weight; bear it with courage, for it is through your resolve that the nation will rise from the ruins of complacency. Let your unity transcend boundaries of region, class, and creed. Let your integrity redefine leadership, and your compassion restore faith in the Filipino spirit.

This is your hour. Let this narrative be not merely a call to awaken, but a solemn commitment―to the country that nurtures you, to the people who believe in you, and to the generations who will follow your example. Stand firm, for you are the heartbeat of a nation yearning to live with dignity once more. Speak right and shine!

Rise, Filipino youth, and let history remember that when your time came ―you stood unwavering, and the nation moved forward.