PARTING WAYS Former President Rodrigo Duterte and former Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, photographed as allies during a 2020 event of the Chinese Filipino Business Club Inc. in Manila, are facing off in the 2025 mayoral race in Davao City. —Malacañang photo
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — It’s dynasty versus dynasty once again in Davao City as the Nograleses revive their rivalry with the Dutertes to end the family’s rule for almost four decades.
Karlo Nograles’ resignation as chair of the Civil Service Commission (CSC) on Monday—when former President Rodrigo Duterte filed his candidacy in a bid to retake his old post as Davao mayor—prompted speculation among political watchers in the country, and especially in this city, that Nograles might challenge his former boss Duterte in the mayoral race.
Nograles remained mum about his post-CSC plans until the last day of the filing of candidacies on Tuesday when he filed his mayoral candidacy at 9:45 a.m. and openly declared his challenge to Duterte.
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Nograles did not present himself as a dynast challenging a dynasty—in what is now a new chapter in the Duterte-Nograles rivalry dating back to 1992—but as a “choice,” he said, for the people of Davao City and a “chance” for them to improve their lives.
“People of Davao have the right to choose—choice is a mark of a democracy. So today, I reach out to all of you. This is a chance to present to you how we can make life better,” Nograles said in his speech declaring his mayoral bid, addressing fellow Davaoeños in the vernacular.
READ: CSC chairperson Nograles resigns
House seat
Meanwhile his sister, PBA (Puwersa ng Bayaning Atleta) party list Rep. Margarita “Migs” Nograles, filed her candidacy also on Tuesday as a congressional candidate in the first district—thereby challenging the incumbent congressman, Duterte’s eldest son Paolo.
Aside from Nograles’ sister Migs, development worker and peace advocate Maria Victoria “Mags” Maglana is another emerging “antipolitical” dynasty candidate to challenge Paolo Duterte in the first district congressional seat.
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The first district congressional seat had been occupied in the past by the Nograles siblings’ father, the late Speaker Prospero Nograles—except for a single term that the older Duterte won in 1998 after Nograles left that seat for another failed bid to capture the mayoralty from the Duterte family.
Except for that only congressional term, Duterte had been Davao mayor since 1988, when the first local elections were held under President Corazon Aquino.
READ: VP Sara Duterte says ‘never again’ teaming up with Marcoses
Nograles had been challenging him time and again since 1992. In 2010, it was Sara Duterte, now the country’s Vice President, whom Nograles challenged for the mayoralty—a post he tried to take three times since the 1990s, despite his having occupied the higher position of Speaker during Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidency.
The Nograles-Duterte rivalry was finally set aside by Nograles’ support for Duterte’s 2016 presidential campaign. This, in turn, led to Karlo Nograles’ appointment to the Duterte administration after serving three terms as representative of Davao’s first district—the seat occupied in the past by Prospero Nograles and Rodrigo Duterte, currently occupied by Paolo Duterte and now contested by Migs Nograles.
Before finishing his stint in Congress, Karlo Nograles served President Duterte as Cabinet secretary in 2018, then as acting presidential spokesperson, and lastly as CSC chair—a post that he kept under the administration of President Marcos and until his resignation on Monday.
Rivalry returns
As the Duterte family’s alliance with Marcos began to fall apart this year, the rivalry between the two Davao families gradually returned, with the Nograles siblings, both lawyers like their father, now picking up, so it seemed, where Prospero Nograles had left off.
Migs Nograles soon became more involved in the investigation by the House quad committee into Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war and other related controversies under his administration.
Late last year, Nograles filed a resolution urging the suspension of the company behind Sonshine Media Network International, the broadcasting network of Duterte’s embattled spiritual adviser Apollo Quiboloy.
Even Paolo Duterte became a subject of the House quad committee inquiry after customs agents linked him to a 2018 “shabu” shipment worth P11 billion.
Amid that background, Davao City has become an electoral battlefield in national politics, with the Dutertes fighting for their political survival. But the outcome in Davao may be just as crucial to the remainder of Marcos’ term and his political security beyond that time.
Local issues
Karlo Nograles may be seen as a favorable candidate to Malacañang, but he filed his candidacy as an independent, projected himself as the least powerful of Davao’s mayoral contenders, and largely limited his remarks to the city’s worsening traffic, perennial flooding and other local issues.
Nograles said he was running as an independent to welcome people from different affiliations and walks of life to freely support him.
He said he offered his 20 years of government service to serve the people of Davao because it was the people of Davao who first gave him the chance in public service. He said his work at the CSC encouraged him to return to Davao, to offer more services that would make people feel the progress of the city.
“The best cities offer the best services,” Nograles said. “A caring city would be a partner of the people, especially during times of needs, to attain food security, to assist in education, to open opportunities for jobs and social services.”
“Today, I offer to you my fate, but not without first trying to convince you and to let you know how it is to have a choice—to make you feel how it is to have a chance, and to earn your support so I can lead you to the change that you so deserve,” he also said to his supporters’ applause.
Councilor Bernard E. Al-ag on Tuesday filed his candidacy as Nograles’ running mate.
Two other candidates, Rodolfo Cubos and Roweno Caballes, had also filed their COCs for mayor.
Cubos, a preacher of the Christ The Healer International Missions Movement, is also regarded as a noteworthy choice among the mayoral candidates. On Saturday when he filed his candidacy, he vowed to bring change to the way Mindanao’s premier urban center is governed.
Previously a supporter of Duterte, Cubos said he was fine with the former president leading the city—except that, the preacher said, Duterte was now way past his prime. Duterte himself had also emphasized his being too old and weak for politics.
Cubos also saw his campaign as being akin to David versus the Goliaths of Davao’s politics—an analogy that reporters also raised to Karlo Nograles when he was asked about his candidacy.
But Nograles was forthright enough to acknowledge that the fighting chance among the city’s leading candidates is “50-50.”—with reports from Krixia Subingsubing and Joselle Badilla