What's Next for the Philippines' Zigzag Politics After Marcos' Stunning Setback

The midterm elections, with the Duterte family's surprise resurgence and the liberal comeback, have implications beyond clan politics.

- Bhavan Jaipragas

In Philippine politics, never write off any possibility. Such unpredictability is the hallmark of the country's famously byzantine internal affairs.

Consider the recent midterm elections, where the headline most likely to stick for those of us observing from outside is surely the juiciest one: former president Rodrigo Duterte, detained and ailing some 11,000km away at The Hague awaiting trial for crimes against humanity, regaining the mayorship of his family's stronghold, Davao City, in a landslide victory in absentia.

So much, then, for all the talk that the Duterte political dynasty was finished after its patriarch, 80, was "shanghaied" to the International Criminal Court. Other members of the Duterte family who contested elections also won comfortably, including Mr. Duterte's son Sebastian, who was re-elected as Davao's deputy mayor.

Spare a thought for their opponents, but spare more for the political analysts who wrote premature obituaries. The Duterte resurgence underscores an enduring, sometimes mystical, power held by political clans in the Philippines.

Any pronouncement made with certainty about political fortunes here risks quick and ruthless invalidation. This axiom looms large in commentaries written since the May 12 vote and in the conversations this columnist has had with Philippine watchers, and it should.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was supposed to perform well—authoritative surveys painted that picture weeks before the vote, buoyed by perceptions that he had pulled off a masterstroke by moving against Mr. Duterte before the election (though Mr. Marcos himself insists the authorities were merely complying with International Criminal Court requests).