00:01This is the vice president of the Philippines.
00:12She's threatening to kill the president if she's killed.
00:16Even though Filipino politics is known for high drama, this was extraordinary.
00:21Right now the tensions have already evolved into an open feud.
00:26The political battle between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte is playing out like a thriller.
00:33But there's more at stake than meets the eye.
00:36Filipinos understand the underdog situation that they're in in terms of geopolitics.
00:41The Philippines is on the front line of China's territorial claims in the South China Sea
00:46and would play a major role in any U.S. effort to counter a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
00:53The Philippines is a key ally for the U.S. here in Asia.
00:57It is located in a very strategic spot.
01:00But this alliance is under pressure as Sara Duterte backs closer ties with China
01:05and her case is being helped by aggressive U.S. tariffs.
01:09President Trump says the U.S. has breached that trade deal with the Philippines.
01:13Trump's presidency has upended just about every assumption you could have about America and the world.
01:19The Philippines sits in the middle of the China-U.S. power struggle.
01:23Which way it swings will have consequences far beyond its borders.
01:32Meet the Marcos' this is former President Ferdinand Marcos and his wife and former First Lady Imelda Marcos,
01:39who you may remember is quite the fan of footwear.
01:42And this is their son Ferdinand Marcos Jr., also known as the current President of the Philippines.
01:48Now meet the Dutertes.
01:50This is Rodrigo Duterte, another former President,
01:53and his daughter Sara Duterte, the current Vice President of the Philippines,
01:57who 14 years ago fell out with a sheriff.
02:01Problem is, President Marcos and Vice President Duterte were a team, but now they're at each other's throats and have very different visions for their country's foreign policy.
02:13Marcos Jr., referred to as Bongbong, has cultivated close ties with Washington, while his political rival has followed in her father's more pro-China footsteps.
02:25Sara Duterte is trying to take a more neutral stance to it.
02:29She wants to work equally with both the U.S. and China.
02:32Any change in the direction of the Philippines' foreign policy stance will have an impact not only here locally, not only in Asia, but the world at large.
02:43And here's why. The Philippines was a U.S. colony till 1946. Located just south of Taiwan, the island chain is critical to the control of waters off the southern coast of China.
02:55Post-pandemic, its economy has grown steadily and faster than most of its regional peers.
03:01The Philippines matters to the U.S. as it's among its allies that it uses to secure trade routes and peace in the region since World War II.
03:13But relations between Washington and Manila are caught up in the political feud we mentioned earlier.
03:20Marcos' term is due to end in 2028. Duterte is emerging as his likely successor.
03:27Their alliance was extraordinary to begin with, but their open hostility even more so.
03:33So how did things get so wild and what can that tell us about what to expect next?
03:40Marcos Sr. led the country for 21 years, from 1965 to 1986.
03:46He and his wife are accused of stealing 10 billion U.S. dollars from the state during his term, as well as torturing and killing thousands of political opponents.
03:57But to his supporters, Marcos Sr. was a hero who drove the Philippines' economic development.
04:05Former President Rodrigo Duterte served from 2016 to 2022.
04:10He pivoted the Philippines towards warmer ties with China and away from the U.S.
04:15Currently, he's in a prison cell in The Hague. More on that later.
04:20The alliance of these two prominent families was a sure path to power, uniting disparate factions of the country into what they branded the Uni Team.
04:33In the 2022 presidential election, Marcos and Duterte romped to victory.
04:38So the 2022 elections is essentially a coalition of convenience between two political families, harnessing the votes from north and south of the country.
04:51It did not take a long time before the Uni Team showed problems.
04:56Sarah wanted the position of Defense Secretary. She was given education, and things only got worse from there.
05:04Her tenure within that Department of Education started to show that there were misuse of funds.
05:11An allegation Sarah denies. As part of that investigation, a trusted aide of Duterte's was detained.
05:19The Vice President decided to go live on Zoom.
05:22This country is going to hell because we are led by a person who doesn't know how to be a president.
05:33And who is a liar?
05:36Duterte claimed her life was under threat, and she had a contract killer ready to assassinate the president if she was killed.
05:44Sarah Duterte is known as a feisty personality here in the Philippines.
05:48She's really not afraid to speak her mind.
05:51But it was really shocking at that time when you have a president and a vice president who just a few years ago were projecting an image of unity.
06:02And here you have the vice president declaring an assassination threat on the president.
06:07Is revenge from the grave a crime?
06:10But the tensions between Marcos and Duterte did not end there.
06:13In March this year, Marcos government acted on an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Sarah's father, former president Rodrigo Duterte.
06:25He was charged by the International Criminal Court with the murder of dozens of alleged drug dealers.
06:31But human rights groups say the victims number in the thousands.
06:35He was flown to The Hague.
06:38But if this was supposed to hurt Sarah, it backfired.
06:42The Duterte clan heavily criticised this move.
06:45They portrayed this as also a surrender of Philippine sovereignty.
06:50So they said handing over the former president to the ICC was actually an act of kidnapping.
06:58When kidnapping is allowed as a means of acquiring the jurisdiction of the accused,
07:03we think this too is a travesty of justice.
07:07Just as the president and vice president split,
07:10so did their approach to foreign relations.
07:14Under Marcos, the Philippines have allowed the U.S. to station more troops
07:19in more locations under their treaty agreements.
07:23There are now nine locations in the Philippines,
07:26some of them very close to Taiwan,
07:28some of them facing the South China Sea,
07:30that the U.S. has access to and will rotate troops through,
07:34that can make investments, that will have a long-term presence.
07:37Since Ferdinand Marcos came to power,
07:40he has really shifted the relationship with China,
07:43and of course has moved much closer to the U.S.
07:46Sarah Duterte has been careful in portraying herself as pro-China.
07:50There is no reason for you to lean towards the U.S.
07:53You have to always stay in the middle,
07:57because you are not a part of the bigger conflicts.
08:02She has said that the relationship between Beijing and Manila
08:06is not defined entirely by their tensions in the South China Sea.
08:11And this is what those tensions look like.
08:14This footage is shot from a Filipino patrol ship
08:17being pursued by two Chinese vessels.
08:20Then this happens.
08:24The Chinese Navy vessel accidentally smashes across the bow of its sister ship.
08:29It's unknown if or how many Chinese sailors lost their lives in this collision.
08:35Philippine vessels have been shown by authorities to have been water cannon,
08:40sideswiped, harassed by Chinese vessels.
08:44China and the Philippines dispute who owns the islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
08:50China's vast claims are encompassed in what's known as the Ten Dash Line,
08:55which sweeps down from Taiwan to the Philippines, Malaysia and up Vietnam's coast.
09:01Nobody agrees with this, including a U.N. court that ruled in the favor of the Philippines.
09:07Yet China is pushing full of speed ahead with its insistence
09:11that it has sovereignty over pretty much the entire South China Sea.
09:15China's rapidly expanding its navy and rejects the U.N. court's ruling.
09:20It says it's committed to upholding freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
09:25The Philippines and its much smaller navy are overmatched.
09:29The country's foreign policy walks a tightrope,
09:32with Marcos and Duterte tugging in different directions.
09:36The country is very vulnerable to Beijing's influence.
09:40And without the U.S. there to back them, there's very little they can do.
09:45U.S. security guarantees are the bedrock of the Philippines' maritime strategy,
09:50but Trump's presidency is casting a shadow on these ties.
09:57The Philippines, just like any other country basically in the world,
10:00is a target of President Donald Trump's trade anger and tariff wars.
10:05Philippines exports to the U.S. are being hit with a 19% tariff.
10:10President Marcos flew to meet President Trump in July this year
10:14in the hope of getting a better deal.
10:16It didn't help.
10:17Marcos got stuck with the same rate as everyone else did,
10:20despite the fact that they have opened up this access to U.S. defense.
10:24As Trump redefines America's role in the world,
10:27nations like the Philippines are left to wonder,
10:30can they still rely on the U.S.?
10:32The U.S. is losing its commitment to its role as a peacemaker.
10:37And Trump is seeing these approaches to free trade and alliances
10:41as more of a hindrance to the United States.
10:45Meanwhile, the feud between Duterte and Marcos continues.
10:49Duterte has pulled off an incredible reversal of fortunes,
10:53avoided impeachment for threatening to have the president killed,
10:56and impeachment for alleged corruption.
10:59She's now, with her more China-friendly policies,
11:02the most popular candidate to be the next Philippine president.
11:06After the arrest of her father, her popularity started to increase again.
11:12And the ratings for Marcos started to decline.
11:17The Trump administration is exerting economic pressure on its allies in the region.
11:23That could give the Philippines more reason to lean away from the U.S.
11:42The Trump administration is exerting economic pressure on its maize and the zust علي
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