IN the grand stagecraft of Philippine politics, where loyalty is fleeting and betrayal is currency, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s recent call for “reconciliation” with Vice President Sara Duterte and her family, a well-rehearsed act of political theater with a performance worthy of Shakespearean applause, a kiss of conciliation masking the dagger of political survival, which in many ways, is also akin, in essence, to a modern-day reenactment of “Judas Iscariot’s kiss.”
Marcos steps into the spotlight draped in the robes of a peacemaker, but beneath the velvet smile flickers the cold steel of ambition. He extends one hand in apparent reconciliation, while the other, hidden just out of view, tightens its grip on the levers of power, orchestrating the choreography of control. His recent call for reconciliation with Sara Duterte and her embattled family, despite a full-blown campaign by his political allies to impeach her and extradite her father to face trial in The Hague, reeks not of statesmanship or a gesture of reconciliation but a calculated act of survival cloaked in the language of diplomacy.
Judas kiss
The biblical kiss of Judas, meant to identify Jesus to the Roman authorities for capture, has long stood as the ultimate symbol of betrayal cloaked in affection. This enduring metaphor perfectly captures the essence of Marcos’ sudden rhetorical pivot, from prosecutorial hostility toward the Duterte camp to a carefully staged call for national reconciliation. What appears on the surface as a gesture of conciliation is, in truth, a master class in political deception. Behind the smiles and the hollow invocations of reconciliation lies an uncomfortable reality: the architects of the Duterte camp’s political persecution sit within Marcos’ own power circle, his kin, his confidants, his political allies and his most loyal political henchmen.
Like Judas Iscariot in Gethsemane, Marcos’ seemingly heartfelt plea, “I want to get along with everyone. I need friends,” rings hollow, emerging not from sincerity but from the cold calculus of political survival. His so-called olive branch is less about healing; it is all about hedging, a desperate bid to pacify a strong and thriving political rival that his camp and allies tried and failed to decapitate politically. The act of extending a conciliatory hand while covertly tightening the political noose around the Duterte camp reveals a presidency ensnared in contradictions that tries to orchestrate damage control masquerading as magnanimity.
The timing betrays the script: in the aftermath of the 2025 midterm elections, where the Duterte camp reasserted its strength, and even before Marcos’ televised reconciliation interview performance, his own kin were sharpening the blades of political duplicity. His cousin, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, and his son, Rep. Sandro Marcos, were the very figures who filed and endorsed the impeachment complaint designed to neutralize Sara Duterte politically. The timing was no accident; it was calculated and orchestrated. The message was clear: while the patriarch plays statesman on national television, the political executioners within his inner circle carry out the purge.
Sara Duterte, in true Davaoeña defiance, did not flinch. She stared down the impeachment plot and responded with a bone-chilling promise of a “bloodbath,” a word that reverberated far beyond metaphor. It was a battle cry, a signal that the betrayal was felt not only politically but personally. The gloves are off, and the façade of “UniTeam” has been shattered.
Just as the dust of political warfare began to rise, Marcos stepped out, reciting lines of reconciliation. Like Judas stepping forward in Gethsemane, Marcos now offers a kiss. “I don’t want conflict. I need friends,” he said. He insisted he bore no ill will. “I already have many enemies. I don’t need more. I need friends,” he said, a statement that would be touching if it weren’t so patently phony. After all, what kind of friend orchestrates a political crucifixion and then offers a flower during the funeral march? Note that this sudden call for reconciliation only emerged after his administration attempted to dismantle the Dutertes, politically and legally speaking.
Distortion
Further raising eyebrows is his refusal to honor the Duterte camp’s condition that former president Rodrigo Duterte be brought home from the International Criminal Court custody, and call on his political allies in both houses of Congress to abandon the impeachment against the vice president as starting points for peace and reconciliation between the two sides underscores the insincerity of the offer and unmasks the hollowness of his plea. “No, no, no, no, no, no. No. That’s not how reconciliation works,” he insisted, rejecting the very notion of conditional dialogue. “You don’t put conditions to reconcile… That’s not even a negotiation. That’s demanding. Reconciliation should have no conditions,” Marcos insisted.
But this framing is a distortion, which precisely makes Marcos’ call for reconciliation hollow and shallow. Reconciliation without justice, mutual respect, or acknowledgment of the betrayal is not reconciliation; it is merely submission, a surrender. The President’s version of “reconciliation” is predicated on obedience and silence, not truth and resolution. It is reconciliation by erasure. This isn’t reconciliation; it’s revisionism and distortion.
True healing begins with mutual acknowledgment of grievances, not one-sided dictates from a throne of convenience. Genuine reconciliation cannot occur without amends, accountability and the honest addressing of grievances. By its very nature, reconciliation requires more than symbolic gestures or rhetorical appeals; it demands substance, sincerity and the moral courage to confront past wrongs.
In any authentic sense, reconciliation requires not the erasure of grievances but the acknowledgment of them. Judas’ kiss sealed the fate of one he pretended to serve. Likewise, while undermining and prosecuting the Dutertes, Marcos’ offer of reconciliation does not heal wounds; it pours salt on them. This is unity through submission, peace through purging and reconciliation on his terms, at his behest. Hence, Marcos’ message is clear: not unity, not reconciliation, but submission disguised as magnanimity. He seeks not reconciliation but submission veiled as reconciliation. And in the shadows of performative conciliation, the real war for power rages on.
Conclusion
Indeed, in a political landscape already inflamed by betrayal, vengeance and the raw calculus of dynastic survival, Marcos’ so-called olive branch resembles more a velvet-wrapped snare than a sincere gesture of reconciliation. Beneath the soft language lies a hard truth: this is not an invitation to heal but a rebranding of dominance. This is not statesmanship. It is a deception and reconciliation enforced at swordpoint. It is classic dual tactics, where a hand extended in peace conceals the other, tightening its grip on power. The so-called reconciliation serves as a smokescreen for a broader project: to entrench loyalists, eliminate rivals and tighten dynastic control ahead of the 2028 political succession. Reconciliation? Perhaps. But only if it means bending the knee.
In the end, if the Duterte camp accepts this kiss, they would be wise to remember the lesson of Gethsemane: the kiss that comes without amends, repentance, justice and accountability is not a sign of reconciliation and is not about healing but hedging.
Source: The Manila Times
https://www.manilatimes.net/2025/05/31/opinion/columns/a-judas-kiss-in-a-barong-reconciliation-or-submission/2124122
