Beyond Impeachment: The Politics Of Survival And Political Fatigue In The Philippines – Analysis
Manila, Philippines
Key Takeaways:
- While Sara Duterte’s impeachment dominates Manila politics, the author argues most households are focused on inflation, rice and fuel prices, wages, and flooding—not Senate drama.
- Official and survey figures cited include April 2026 inflation of 7.2% (8.5% for the poorest), rice inflation of 13.7%, a real minimum wage of about ₱378, and polls ranking prices and pay far above impeachment (about 1.2% as a top concern).
- Many still support holding a trial (around 70–74% in some polls) but treat it as background noise amid political fatigue, elite Marcos–Duterte rivalry, and corruption they feel most when flood-control projects fail.
A nation of over 110 million people, the Philippines is currently enmeshed with the impeachment trial of the country’s Vice-President, Sara Duterte, over allegations concerning financial irregularities, unexplained wealth, misuse of public resources and other constitutional and legal questions. While the trial commands headlines and occupies the attention of Manila’s political elite, ordinary Filipino household is rivetted not with a debate before the Senate trial but in counting how much money is left it has after transportation, i.e., jeepney, bus, or commuter train, fare is paid; checking whether the rice in a plastic container will last for a week; and glancing anxiously at the sky during the wet season, wondering if the streets will flood again before nightfall.
This does not mean that everyday Filipinos are not concerned with the fate of the Vice-President. This is not because they are indifferent to accountability or governance. It is because economic survival is immediate, tangible, pragmatic, and inescapable, while impeachment proceedings feel distant, slow-moving, and largely disconnected from the price of galunggong (round scad, known as “poor man’s fish”) rice, vegetables, or meat at the market. This is not apathy; it is the arithmetic of survival. This suggests that political salience is strongly shaped by the immediacy of material conditions. A constitutional controversy may dominate the news cycle, but the price of food, electricity, transport and gasoline is experienced directly by households every day.
Economy and welfare
The economic reality of 2026 is brutal for the average Filipino family. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that inflation jumped to 7.2 percent in April 2026, its fastest pace in three years. For the bottom 30 percent of households – those most vulnerable to price shocks – inflation climbed even higher, reaching 8.5 percent. These are not abstract statistics; they translate into daily struggles at the market.
Rice, the nation’s staple food, saw its inflation rate soared to 13.7 percent in Apri 2026. Prices of other essential goods rocketed, galunggong (a common fish), carrots, and kangkong (water spinach)to name a few. An 11-kilogram LPG tank now costs between Php1,110 (US$18) and Php1,600 (US$26), up from Php830 (US$13.40) previously. Electricity rates have climbed to Php14.48 (US$0.23) per kilowatt-hour, adding roughly Php466 (US$7.52) to a typical household’s monthly bill. All of this unfolds against a backdrop of stagnant wages. The average nominal minimum wage nationwide is just Php512, (US$8.27) but its real value—factoring in inflation—is only Php378 (US$6.11). As research group IBON stressed, “Filipinos’ wages are not enough to keep up with higher prices.”
Compounding the cost of food is the relentless volatility of fuel prices. Fuel price hikes ripple through every sector of the economy. They increase the cost of transporting goods, which in turn drives up food prices further. They burden jeepney drivers and farmers alike. Energy Undersecretary Alessandro Sales acknowledged the connection, noting that “a conflict thousands of kilometres away can still affect the jeepney driver filling up for the day”
These figures demonstrate that economic concerns operate at both the national and household levels. Citizens are not simply concerned about an abstract macroeconomic indicator called inflation. They are concerned about whether their salaries can buy enough food, whether they can save money, whether they can maintain employment and whether they can provide for their families. A rise in the price of rice, vegetables, meat or fuel immediately affects household consumption. A rise in gasoline prices can subsequently increase transportation costs and the prices of goods because producers, distributors and retailers face higher logistical expenses.
A household struggling with food, transport and utility costs, the question is not primarily whether a political leader has violated a constitutional norm but whether the family’s income can cover its expenses. For a population where daily survival depends on affordable transportation and food, the impeachment trial of a Vice President feels like a distant concern.
Floods and corruption
Beyond high prices and stagnant wages, Filipinos face the annual ordeal of typhoons and flooding. The country lies in the Pacific “Typhoon Belt,” averaging 20 typhoons each year. In August 2026 alone, the enhanced southwest monsoon combined with tropical cyclones Luis and Maymay to affect nearly half a million people across multiple regions Infrastructure damage was estimated at PHP105.5 million (US$1.7M), with agricultural losses surpassing PHP1 billion (US$ 16.2M), including P589 million (US$9.5M) in rice and P313 (US$5M) million in vegetables.
For families in flood-prone communities, a single storm can undo years of slow, hard-won progress: a variety (sari-sari) store’s inventory ruined, a tricycle submerged and unusable, school supplies and important documents destroyed, days or weeks of lost income while roads remain impassable. These losses are immediate and personal in a way that a Senate impeachment vote, however consequential for national politics, simply is not. When a family is bailing water out of their home, the question of whether a senator votes to convict or acquit a vice president feels like it belongs to a different world entirely.
Corruption in floodcontrol projects, drainage systems, and local infrastructure has direct, visible consequences: flooding, damaged property, disrupted livelihoods, and increased household expenses. These failures are experienced physically and repeatedly, reinforcing public frustration with governance.
While the impeachment of Sara Duterte involves allegations of bribery, misuse of confidential funds, and unexplained wealth, Filipinos often perceive elite corruption as recurring and systemic. Infrastructure corruption, by contrast, is felt physically—when streets flood, when drainage fails, when communities suffer. This makes it more salient.
Surveys say
The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte registers barely a blip on the public’s radar of concerns. According to a survey of Pulse Asia (for profit public opinion polling body), impeachment ranks near the very bottom of the public’s immediate priorities, polling at just 1.2 percent. Only one in ten Filipinos actively follows the trial. As political analyst Cleve Arguelles observed, “the survey data tells us that the public may be aware that the trial is happening, but the proceedings haven’t yet broken through in a way that feels meaningful or legible to the average Filipino.”
In July 2026, a probe by the OCTA Research (a private polling, research, and consultation found that controlling the increase in prices of basic goods and services was the country’s most urgent national concern, cited by 37 percent of respondents. Increasing wages followed at 34 percent, while fighting graft and corruption ranked third at 32 percent. The survey further revealed that 47 percent of respondents regarded having enough food every day as an important personal concern, while 41 percent cited having savings and 41 percent cited having a secure and well-paying job or income source.
In addition, Pulse Asia survey in late June and early July exhibited that 57 percent of Filipinos regarded reigning rising prices as an immediate government priority, compared with 43 percent for corruption and 36 percent for workers’ pay. Likewise, the study disclosed that 13 percent of respondents specifically identified lowering oil prices among the country’s urgent concerns. This figure was smaller than the 57 percent who prioritised regulating rising commodity prices, but the relationship between the two is important: expensive fuel contributes to the swelling cost-of-living problem.
Moreover, in a national poll done by the International Republican Institute’s (IRI) Center for Insights in Survey Research (CISR) prior to the May 2025 elections, it was divulged that cost of living and high prices, especially food prices, were identified by 62 percent as either the first or second most important problem facing the country – well ahead of unemployment and corruption.
BMI (Business Monitor International), a unit of Fitch Solutions company that provides macroeconomic, industry, and financial market analysis, identified the cost-of-living crisis as the “primary driver of rising social and political risk in the Philippines.” Protests have erupted not over impeachment, but over fuel prices and the demand for the repeal of the Oil Deregulation Law. The Mass Support Risk indicator, which evaluates public support for government policies, has been ascending precisely because of economic grievances.
This is not to say however that Filipinos are indifferent to accountability. In OCTA’s earlier survey, in April 2026, it bared that 74 percent of adult Filipinos supported proceeding with the impeachment trial of Sara Duterte, compared with 21 percent who opposed it. Social Weather Stations (private, non-stock, nonprofit social and survey research institution) also reported in July 2026 that 74 percent of adults were aware that the impeachment case and 70 percent also agreed that Duterte should address the impeachment charges.
Indeed, these findings indicate that Filipinos do care about accountability. However, awareness of and support for an impeachment process are not the same as making impeachment the country’s most urgent policy concern. Clearly, a citizen can simultaneously believe that Sara Duterte should face an impeachment trial and believe that restraining food prices, raising wages and combating corruption are more urgent problems.
The peoples’ interest over the trial has been determined by the National Momentum Survy in July 2026. It found out that while 68.1% of Filipinos are aware that the trial is happening, the vast majority are not actively following its details. Apparently, the interest in the impeachment process is not the same as active engagement with it. When daily survival is precarious, political dramas – no matter how consequential – become luxuries of attention that few can afford.
Political fatigue, cynicism, and elite controversies
Eight decades of corruption, political scandals, and misgovernance have produced a form of political fatigue. Many Filipinos believe that elite politicians will continue to fight among themselves regardless of public opinion. Economic issues, however, cannot be ignored. They demand attention, and they shape voting behaviour, protest movements, and community discourse.
A palpable sense of political fatigue has settled over the electorate as the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte drag on, increasingly perceived as just another chapter in the endless elite controversies that have come to define national politics. The political theatre – marked by the Marcos-Duterte feud, premature 2028 campaign manoeuvring, and a revolving door of corruption allegations – has begun to feel like a distant spectacle to ordinary Filipinos grappling with the immediate realities of daily survival.
The conflict between the Marcos and Duterte political families has increasingly dominated Philippine political discourse. For ordinary citizens, however, elite political rivalry can appear distant from everyday economic problems. Political families may fight over power, but households still have to pay for food, transportation, electricity, education and housing. This creates an important distinction between elite political competition and mass political priorities. Political elites may view the impeachment through the lens of succession, power and institutional control. Ordinary citizens may perceive it through a much simpler question: Will this make my family’s life better?
The public’s exhaustion is reflected in survey after survey: while a majority may acknowledge the impeachment as a significant issue, it consistently ranks at the bottom of voter priorities, far behind agriculture, healthcare, employment, and education. As one sociologist put it, “bread-and-butter issues can overshadow political dramas in people’s everyday lives.” Ultimately, the central political question for many Filipinos is not simply who wins the Marcos-Duterte struggle, but whether government can deliver a more secure economic future.
This cynicism is compounded by the realization that the political class’s obsession with the impeachment trial comes at a steep opportunity cost. While Congress fixates on the Vice President’s political fate, a long queue of urgent legislation—from anti-political dynasty and freedom of information laws to measures addressing electricity bills, food prices, and corruption remains neglected, some waiting for decades.
Meanwhile, the impeachment trial itself costs an estimated ₱25 million (US$404 thousand) a day, funds that critics argue could be better spent on roads, jobs, and social services. International ratings agencies like Moody’s have even warned that this political noise threatens to undermine economic stability and fiscal reforms, signalling that the elite’s political vendettas carry real economic consequences for every Filipino.
Faced with rising fuel and food prices, persistent inflation, and the daily struggle to make ends meet, the Filipino people have increasingly tuned out the impeachment drama. Their priority is not the fate of a political dynasty but the stability of their own households. In this context, the impeachment of Sara Duterte is not the nation’s central project – it is a distraction from the economic emergency that truly matters.
Conclusion
Filipinos’ stronger concern for economic welfare over the impeachment of Sara Duterte reflects a rational prioritization of urgent, lived problems. While they support institutional accountability, their political energy is directed toward issues that shape their daily lives: inflation, corruption in public services, and the struggle for economic stability. The impeachment may matter for governance, but economic hardship defines the Filipino present—and shapes their political future.
The peoples’ stronger concern for economic welfare over the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte reflects a structurally grounded pattern in Philippine political behaviour: material insecurity and governance failures in everyday life consistently outweigh elitelevel political controversies. The lesson for policymakers is not that accountability doesn’t matter to the public, but that it will matter most when it is convincingly tied to the everyday economic relief that Filipinos are still waiting for.
In the hierarchy of needs, politics must wait. Survival cannot. In this sense, the most powerful political issue in the Philippines may not be the struggle between political dynasties but the struggle of ordinary families to maintain a decent standard of living. For many citizens, political accountability matters—but economic survival comes first.
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