IN politics, power is often irresistible. When a presidency weakens, the question inevitably follows: Why does the vice president not simply take it?
In the Philippines today, this question surfaces repeatedly around Vice President Sara Duterte. Amid tensions with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., some observers ask why she does not openly call for the president’s resignation or maneuver to replace him.
History offers a tempting precedent. In 2001, then-vice president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo moved decisively against President Joseph Estrada during the crisis that culminated in EDSA 2. Estrada’s presidency collapsed after the military withdrew support and mass protests erupted. Within hours, Arroyo took the oath of office as president.
The episode suggests that vice presidents can become presidents simply by seizing the moment. But politics rarely works that way. What Arroyo did in 2001 and what Duterte appears to be doing today reflect two vastly different strategic calculations. At the center of this difference lies a phenomenon political strategists often call the successor’s trap.
The successor’s trap occurs when a vice president inherits the presidency before an election and discovers that power brings more liabilities than advantages. The new leader at once becomes responsible for crises they did not create. Economic difficulties, political scandals and institutional weaknesses suddenly become the successor’s burden. The public rarely distinguishes between the failures of the previous administration and the responsibility of the new president to fix them. In short, the successor inherits the problems but not the legitimacy.
This pattern is not unique to the Philippines. Around the world, leaders who assume office through sudden succession often struggle politically afterward. Consider the United States in 1963. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Johnson initially wielded enormous political authority and pushed through historic legislation such as the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society programs. But he also inherited the escalating war in Vietnam. As the conflict deepened, Johnson’s popularity collapsed. By 1968, facing massive protests and declining approval ratings, he announced he would not seek reelection.
Brazil is another example. In 2016, Vice President Michel Temer assumed the presidency after the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Temer entered office promising stability and economic reform. Instead, his administration quickly became engulfed in corruption allegations and extremely low approval ratings. By the next election cycle, Temer was so politically weakened that he did not even try to run for president.
Even in the Philippines, presidential transitions have often appeared from extraordinary circumstances. Corazon Aquino assumed power in 1986 not through the constitutional line of succession but through a “revolution.” The People Power uprising forced out Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. from Malacañang and installed Aquino as president. Her legitimacy came from moral authority and popular mobilization rather than from institutional continuity.
Interestingly, the Philippines’ two female presidents, Aquino and Arroyo, both assumed the presidency under extraordinary conditions. Aquino came through a people power uprising. Arroyo, through the collapse of an elected president. Neither first entered the presidency through the routine electoral pathway.
We saw that power obtained during crisis often comes with permanent political turbulence. The structural pressures of the successor’s trap explain why vice presidents hesitate to force succession unless the collapse of the sitting president is already irreversible. A successor inherits the full weight of the state’s unresolved problems: economic pressures, political polarization, and governance controversies. At the same time, the successor must work with weaker legitimacy because the transfer of power did not come through a direct electoral mandate.
This creates a compressed political timetable. The successor must simultaneously stabilize the government, rebuild coalitions and prepare for the next election, all while facing heightened scrutiny. History shows that incumbency gained through crisis is often fragile. Instead of strengthening political prospects, early succession can transform a potential challenger into a lightning rod for public frustration. Taking power too early can make victory later far more difficult.
The second structural factor is the configuration of elite power. Marcos Jr. continues to command the major levers of state authority: the House of Representatives, the cabinet bureaucracy, and the fiscal machinery of government. Just as importantly, his administration has combined institutional support through a familiar combination of incentives and pressure.
In Philippine politics, control of the national budget translates into political leverage. Infrastructure projects, development funds, and fiscal allocations create incentives for cooperation among local governments and allied political families. Appointments and promotions reinforce the same dynamic within the security sector. Senior positions in the Armed Forces and Philippine National Police, extensions of tenure, and strategic assignments secure loyalty among the top brass. Political influence also works through pressure. Investigations, regulatory scrutiny, and dormant legal cases can discipline dissent within elite circles. Business interests and political families aware of their vulnerabilities often choose accommodation over confrontation.
These dynamics extend beyond the bureaucracy. Business leaders, political power brokers and religious institutions such as the Catholic hierarchy respond to signals from the center of government. Quiet consultations and back channel communications help reinforce the perception that the administration keeps control of the political system. Under such conditions, an attempt by a vice president to engineer regime change would be extraordinarily risky. Rather than fracturing the establishment, it could unify elite actors against the challenger.
For Sara Duterte, the strategic dilemma is therefore clear. Forcing succession prematurely could place her at the center of elite resistance before she has secured a national mandate. Instead of entering the next presidential race as an alternative to the establishment, she would become the incumbent responsible for managing its problems. That is the essence of the successor’s trap.
An early accession to the presidency would also shift public expectations overnight. Fiscal pressures, economic anxieties and governance controversies now attributed to the Marcos administration would quickly become hers to solve.
Waiting for an electoral mandate changes the equation. A decisive victory confers legitimacy that succession rarely provides. Philippine political elites, pragmatic by nature, tend to align themselves with whoever wins convincingly at the ballot box.
Power in politics is not only about the ability to seize office. It is about the ability to hold it with legitimacy and govern with stability. Sara Duterte, just like her father, is again throwing the playbook by declaring her intention 28 months ahead of everyone thereby changing the landscape.
The lesson of recent history, from Lyndon Johnson in America to Michel Temer in Brazil, from Corazon Aquino’s revolutionary presidency to Gloria Arroyo’s crisis succession, is that power obtained too early can become politically corrosive.
Vice presidents who force their way into the presidency may gain the palace, but they also inherit the burdens of a broken political moment. The presidency may be within reach, but timing decides whether it becomes an opportunity or a trap.
Sometimes the most decisive act in politics is not to seize power when it appears possible — but to wait until it becomes inevitable. And in the long arc of Philippine politics, patience has often proven to be the more enduring form of power.
