CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – The morning heat had barely lifted when it settled over downtown Davao, pressing down on a crowd that had gathered hours before the parade began.

By midmorning Saturday, March 28, thousands of Dabawenyos lined the streets for what was clearly more than a routine charter day celebration.

The day’s events were part civic ritual and part political gathering, a demonstration that once again turned Davao into some sort of a political mecca for the DDS (Duterte Diehard Supporters).

The parade lasted about five hours, passing through Roxas Avenue before ending at the San Pedro Square, where politicians separately gathered and took turns addressing their supporters. 

This year, the parade for the Araw ng Dabaw, traditionally held on March 16, was moved to March 28 to coincide with the 81st birthday of detained ex-president Rodrigo Duterte.

Duterte served for decades as the city’s mayor and built one of Mindanao’s most powerful political dynasties. He has been held in The Hague since March 2025, facing crimes against humanity charges at the International Criminal Court.

By the time the parade reached San Pedro Square, the message was clear. What was meant to be a celebration of cityhood had taken on a political tone, even as it was framed as separate from the parade, with politicians presenting it as both a tribute and a protest led by the Duterte family and their allies.

“Bring him home,” read banners, and similar slogans on shirts, signs, and streamers referred to the former president, who has now spent over a year in detention abroad.

Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, attended with her brother, Davao Mayor Sebastian Duterte, nephew Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte II, and congressional allies Isidro Ungab and Omar Duterte. On the sidelines, the Vice President told reporters she wished her father “another year of good health.”

Senator Bong Go, a longtime aide to the former president, also came along with prominent allies of the Duterte family, which included former elections commissioner Rowena Guanzon, former Marcos executive secretary and estranged supporter Vic Rodriguez, Cavite 4th District Representative Kiko Barzaga, Batangas 1st District Representative Leandro Leviste, former National Youth Commission chairman Ronald Cardema, and controversial lawyer Ferdinand Topacio.

Notably absent was Senator Bato dela Rosa, the former police chief closely tied to Duterte’s drug war, who has kept a low profile for months amid talk of a supposed arrest warrant from the ICC. He has not shown up for meetings at the Senate since 2025.

Onstage, Sebastian Duterte spoke to the crowd in a mix of governance and grievance. He pushed support for his sister’s announced 2028 presidential run while taking aim at the administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a government his sister helped bring to power in 2022 and once supported. He pointed to crime and illegal drugs, invoking the “culture of security” that, he asserted, has defined Davao since his father’s time.

The gathering at the San Pedro Square focused less on Davao’s progress as a city or policy issues and more on demonstrating allegiance to the Duterte family. Groups identifying as DDS dominated it, chanting and carrying banners calling for the return of the Duterte patriarch, showing his continued support base at home even as he remains in detention at The Hague.

The Duterte family’s supporters are also set on staging a “Solidarity Walk” around the San Pedro Square in the afternoon to mark his 81st birthday. Organizers said the activity had nothing to do with the 89th Araw ng Dabaw celebration.

Davao was inaugurated as a chartered city in 1937, following the signing of its charter by then-president Manuel L. Quezon.

Rodrigo Duterte, a former prosecutor, began his political career in the city as officer-in-charge or acting vice mayor in 1986, following the EDSA People Power Revolution that ousted the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos. He was first elected mayor of Davao in the first post-EDSA elections during the first Aquino administration, and then rose to the presidency in 2016. – Rappler.com