The old man Duterte himself has said, as have their propagandists, that Sara is worse than her father. I tend to believe them all. After all, if there’s anything we now know for sure, while she might not have the same kind of “charm” that her father did, she has built a powerful woman vibe, the kind that gets away with saying she imagined beheading the President; or that she will have him, his wife, and his cousin conditionally assassinated; the kind that gets away with saying she wants a bloodbath. The kind that went on stage at various 2025 local campaign sorties to publicly take down, with photos and videos, those she considered as “enemy”.

That she has approval numbers like this despite an impeachment she deserves, as does her father jailed and on trial for crimes against humanity and the thousands killed in the drug war, should be reason for alarm—and urgent, focused, strategic action—if we care at all about our freedoms.