Marcos Jnr just happens to be in Duterte’s bad books right now, having convinced Duterte’s daughter Sara – apparently against her father’s wishes – to be his running mate for the May election.

The senior Duterte has made clear he felt his daughter should have been more ambitious and aimed for the top job. He has claimed that his daughter never told him about her move and that he had been expecting her to be the running mate of his crony, Senator Christopher “Bong” Go.

In a video interview that aired on YouTube on November 14, he referred to Marcos Jnr, 64, as “pro-communist” – a stinging criticism for a man once seen as an ally of the Duterte administration.

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Communism and drugs are two favourite themes of Duterte. A brutal war on drugs was his centrepiece programme: he won the presidency largely because of his promise that, rather than treating drug addicts, he would exterminate them.

The president is also known for going off on tangents in his public speeches, often crudely attacking critics and political foes. He said on Thursday in reference to the mystery drug user: “That’s why I wonder, what has that person accomplished? I’m just asking, what contribution has he made to the Philippines?”

“Why do Filipinos seem crazy in supporting [this person]? I will just ask you, what has this person done. This person does drugs, he does cocaine.”

He told listeners, “it’s up to you if that’s who you want. Just remember, when the time comes, what I told you, and he is a very weak leader in character, except for the name.”

“His father – but him, what has he done? He might win hands down, okay. If that’s what the Philippines wants, go ahead, as long as you know.

Follow the mumbling

Duterte left little room for doubt when he referred to “he” with a famous father and someone who came from a wealthy family.

There are six major male presidential candidates, and the only one who fits the description is Marcos, who currently tops voting polls.

Marcos is the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the country under a period of martial law and is accused of killing thousands in anti-communist purges and embezzling billions of dollars.

Marcos Jnr did not finish college, though several years back he claimed to have graduated from Oxford, something that turned out not to be true.

Marcos also has a patchy political record. Though he served as a congressman and a senator, only two of the laws he authored have been enacted by Congress – one to rename a college in his home province, the other to postpone village elections. He has also been convicted of income tax evasion.

On Friday, Duterte was asked in an ambush interview whether the ruling PDP-Laban Party he chairs would forge a coalition with the Lakas-Christian Muslim Democratic Party, which his daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio now chairs.

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Seemingly referring to Duterte, the president replied, according to an official transcript provided by the presidential palace: “He doesn’t impress me. He’s really a weak leader … I am not bashing anyone, but he’s really weak, because he’s a spoiled child, only son.

“Of course, he can talk. He delivers English articulate[ly]. Because he studies in foreign places. But if you say there’s a crisis, he is a weak leader and has [political] baggage.”

The Marcos camp has denied the innuendos. “We don’t feel alluded to,” Marcos’s spokesman Vic Rodriguez told online news site Rappler, and added that they maintain “the highest respect for President Duterte”.

Whatever the Marcos camp thought, the Philippine public were quick to draw their own conclusions – along with mocking posts on social media.

One hashtag that quickly spread was #BongbongNarcos.

On Twitter, people started using the hashtag #SolidSnort, a reference to cocaine, and to Marcos who has billed himself as the candidate of the “solid north” because his family comes from the northern province of Ilocos.

The office of Senator Leila De Lima, a political foe Duterte has imprisoned on what critics say are trumped up drug charges, tweeted: “Duterte says a presidential candidate is a cocaine addict, and he seems to have known it all along. While unnamed, it’s pretty obvious who he’s referring to.

“If that’s the case, it should have been him you jailed, not me. Isn’t cocaine part of your drug war?”

Surprise rift

The rift between Duterte and the Marcoses is one of the early surprises in the pre-election campaign. Political analysts had assumed the two would be working closely.

In 2016 when Duterte successfully ran for president, there were times that Duterte told supporters to vote for Marcos as vice-president even though Senator Alan Peter Cayetano was officially his running mate.

At the start of his term, Duterte had ordered the burial of Marcos Snr in the National Heroes’ Cemetery – bestowing on him a great honour despite his controversial history – and publicly thanked the Marcoses for helping finance his election.

Political analyst Earl Parreño said that if Duterte was indeed referring to Marcos Jnr, then it was because he had bitter experience with the late dictator.

“I think it’s time for revenge,” said Parreño, author of Beyond Will & Power, an unauthorised biography of Duterte.

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Parreño claimed Duterte nursed a long-standing grudge against Marcos Snr because he had dropped his political support of Vicente Duterte, Rodrigo Duterte’s father and the former governor of Davao.

Parreño said Vicente had helped win Davao for Marcos in his 1965 presidential election but when Vicente ran for Congress in 1969 Marcos had personally visited Davao to campaign against Vicente.

In his book, Parreño wrote that Vicente’s death three months after he lost that election and the elder Marcos’ betrayal of his father had hit the young Rodrigo Duterte hard.

“Rodrigo was distraught, said Jocelyn [his sister]. He locked himself in his room as he cried all alone, hit the walls with his fists and threw things as he raged.”

Despite this, Duterte allied himself with the Marcos family when he ran for president in 2016. The Duterte camp initially approached Imee Marcos [Marcos Jnr’s sister], but she declined to help saying the family had already given their backing to another candidate, Makati City mayor Jejomar Binay.

But when the campaign period started, “Imee suddenly invited Duterte to Ilocos Norte” and there, inside the mausoleum where their late father’s body was allegedly encased, Duterte promised the Marcos family he would bury him in the Heroes’ Cemetery if he won, according to Parreño.

Duterte made good on this promise and thought he had repaid the family for their support, Parreño added.

But when Marcos Jnr convinced Duterte’s daughter Sara to run without first asking her father’s blessing, the elder Duterte must have felt slighted, Parreño concluded.

“You know his personality is all about him,” Parreño said. What Marcos did was “a slap in the face”.