The Tamesis
December 2, 2024
Manila – Vice President Sara Duterte recently faced a House committee’s contempt of court order against her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, for evading questions about her office’s questionable use of classified funds. Vice President Sara Duterte has provided on-and-off entertainment to the public in recent days with her performances. Meanwhile, Duterte's death threats against President Marcos, First Lady Lisa Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez have set off a ringing bell for the officials' security detail In a wake-up call, the National Bureau of Investigation issued a subpoena to the vice president on Tuesday to explain her illegal remarks.
Beyond spectacle, however, popcorn moments like this reveal disturbing truths about the country's justice system, in which only the poor and disenfranchised face the full wrath of the law. As in the case of the Vice President, the rich, powerful, and privileged can defy congressional mandates and publicly claim to order strikes against the country's top officials with impunity.
Investigative agencies expressed despair and widespread outcry over the vice president's blatant threats, which contrasted with a 25-year-old teacher from Zambales province who in 2020 offered a 50-million-peso bounty to three people for postings on X (formerly Twitter). A 25-year-old teacher from Valles province was arrested without a warrant. It's obviously a joke — admittedly, a bad one — but it easily defies logic, because how could a measly teacher raise the millions of dollars he's offered?
picture perfect
His arrest prompted Union of Concerned Teachers party-list Rep. Frans Castro to comment that our laws seemed to have a double standard: “When the president makes a threat, that's okay, but ordinary people get arrested.”
Recently, a court acquitted former Senator Leila de Lima of all drug-related charges brought against her by the previous administration. De Lima's case took nearly seven years to resolve – after several judges changed and government witnesses recanted their testimony – nearly the same time the attorney general's son Juanito Jose Remura III was detained. Three months is a far cry from each other.
De Lima's police escort also physically blocked media interviews with her before she was acquitted. In stark contrast, the Vice President requested a photo during a visit to Lopez Hospital, while Police Chief Brig. General Nicolás Torre III readily agreed. So the public saw the K-drama scene of Lopez crying hysterically, clinging to Duterte, the perfect image to document their “victim.”
birthday party
In 2023, another teacher was arrested for posting a video purportedly showing a traffic jam caused by the Vice President’s motorcade passing through Federal Avenue in Quezon City. While the vice president was quick to deny she was in the alleged motorcade, just a hint from a wary public that she would make a mistake seemed enough to grease the squeaky wheels of selective justice.
Those who point to De Lima's belated exoneration as evidence of how well the country's justice system works often forget that the equal application of the law is an integral part of the system and is often ignored by authorities. Police and government actors who abuse their power are the first to flout the law – even more so during a pandemic when recourse to appropriate authorities is nearly impossible during lockdown.
Remember then-National Capital Region Police Chief Maj. Gen. Debold Sinas’ birthday celebration in 2020 when law enforcement officers violated the health protocols they were supposed to enforce? Violations of mask-wearing and social distancing were clear violations of the Bayanihan Act, but police were not sanctioned. Meanwhile, police arrested six volunteers who were delivering relief supplies to Bulacan without valid quarantine passes. As of September 6, 2020, news reports stated that a total of 100,486 people had been arrested across the country on suspicion of violating quarantine regulations.
pork barrel scam
In 2015, the Supreme Court granted bail to former senator Juan Ponce Enrile in the pork barrel scam plunder case on “humanitarian grounds,” and former police chief Oscar Albayalde ) used “age and health” as considerations when organizing possible arrests. While suspects often spend years waiting for their cases to come to trial, Marcos was convicted in 2018 on seven counts of corruption and sentenced to 42 to 77 years in prison, but never served a day of his sentence.
Could someone please remind the Vice President that every time she denounces the lack of due process in Lopez's case, people are reminded yet again how a lack of due process led to thousands of extrajudicial killings during her father's tenure?
Lady Justice has repeatedly winked at the privileged few, and how the authorities deal with the Duterte family's criminal conduct – her “plotting” of the possible murder of three officials and his calls for the military to intervene in “fractured governance” – deserves close attention. Will the authorities finally step up and prove once and for all that no one is above the law?
