Sara Duterte burst into the national consciousness in 2011 via an extraordinary act of force and aggression. In July of that year, in full view of media cameras and a throng of onlookers, the then Davao City mayor repeatedly punched a court sheriff, smacking him in the eyes, the face, and the back.
The sheriff, Abe Andres, was enforcing a court order that authorized the demolition of houses in a contested property in Barangay Soliman, in Davao’s district of Agdao. Duterte had supposedly sent word to Andres asking for a two-hour deferment of the demolition. But Andres defied the request, leading to his being battered by the city mayor and sent to the hospital afterward.
Duterte’s startling display of violence toward a court officer earned the condemnation of a number of observers, who called her behavior “very unprofessional” and a case of “obstruction of justice.” Law professor Theodore Te, a member of the Free Legal Assistance Group, said Duterte’s action “was not justifiable, not acceptable” and “could be liable under the disciplinary rules for lawyers.”
Duterte’s reaction? “I don’t care,” she declared. For good measure, she threatened the court with retribution: “Say goodbye to your budget … They will cite me for contempt? I will also cite them for contempt.”
Special treatment
Duterte is herself a lawyer, which made her conduct all the more problematic. What power did she have as mayor to “cite in contempt” a court whose authority she was challenging, the judiciary being an independent branch of government? As both a lawyer and city mayor, she should have been the first to know that—and more importantly, to recognize the sheriff’s duty to enforce a legal order and to respect that mandate.
One can draw a straight line from that early demonstration of arrogance and contempt for the legal process to the latest behavior displayed by Duterte, now the country’s Vice President. On Saturday, Duterte appeared in person before a Quezon City court accompanied by her lawyers, Paul Lawrence Lim and Michael Poa, to post bail for each of the three counts of grave threats filed against her in connection with the threats of assassination she had publicly hurled in 2024 at President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Duterte had responded to the warrant of arrest issued against her by the court by voluntarily showing up for bail. But what should have been a straightforward legal procedure became another showcase for Duterte’s by now familiar loathing for following rules and protocols, and insistence on being afforded special treatment.
Ethical duty
She refused at first to take the stairs to the court, saying that she did not “feel safe,” she no longer trusted her own security detail, and that she could be pushed down and killed on the stairs, citing the case of the martyred Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. She also didn’t want to take the elevator, expressing fears at being left alone with police officers.
All this time she was arguing publicly with Poa, who meekly tried to tell her that they needed to go up the building to physically show up in court. Duterte’s solution to the bizarre dilemma she had conjured for herself was to invite members of the press to accompany her on the stairs, supposedly so they could ensure her safety.
All of this would qualify as laughable theatrics, Duterte flexing yet again her sense of entitlement, if not for the fact that she is the second-highest official of the land, with an outsize security detail numbering 320 (433 in 2022). Part of Duterte’s oath of office mandates her to “preserve and defend the Constitution” and “execute its laws.” As a lawyer —bafflingly still not yet disbarred despite having assaulted a sheriff and made death threats against the sitting President—Duterte also remains an officer of the court, with the ethical duty to uphold the integrity and dignity of the legal system.
Fragile system
None of the actions she displayed last weekend could be construed as inspiring confidence in the legal process or its enforcers. She said it herself: “Wala na akong tiwala sa pulis, wala na akong tiwala sa korte (I do not trust the police, I no longer have trust in the court).”
This was the same judiciary, however, that not too long ago Duterte had essentially extolled as a functioning, upright institution capable of rendering fair judgment on the case of her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte. Why, she argued, should her father be incarcerated in The Hague and tried by the International Criminal Court when “there is no breakdown of the judicial system in the Philippines?”
Ah, but that was then, and this is now—Duterte having no qualms disparaging the court and, in the process, reminding the public how her behavior reflects all too poorly on the position she holds. The nation’s already fragile system of justice and law can only be corroded by a Vice President who seemingly continues to think rules and institutional restraints apply to everyone else but herself.