THE trial of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment case is finally on. And the iteration of her language — defiant, unconquered, unbowed — just went up a notch on the second day.
The House of Representatives had impeached her more than a year ago, but the impeachment court at the time, under then-Senate president Francis “Chiz” Escudero, took its time to hear the case. Token steps were taken, like putting on a judge-like robe, which was fitting, only because delays in hearing court cases are common. (On standard trial days, the senators wore their regular legislative attire when they heard the impeachment case of President Erap Estrada in 2000, which more aptly carried at least the external appearance of the impeachment process as being more political than judicial.)
Then the midterm elections got in the way of a hypothetical impeachment calendar, and the new congressional mandate that took shape after that rendered the pending impeachment case moot.
Impeached a second time, Duterte and her supporters leveraged every path available to thwart attempts to compel her to answer the charges against her. Pleas had been raised before the Supreme Court to dismiss as infirm the twice-filed impeachment complaint against her. When the House voted on May 11, 2026, to refile the complaint, Sen. Bato de la Rosa, who had been in hiding for six months to dodge an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity, suddenly showed up to help a known Duterte-allied bloc constitute a new Senate majority, which, in blitzkrieg fashion, elected Alan Peter Cayetano as president. Three days later, deep into the night, a related side plot unfolded where bursts of gunfire rattled the senators, prompting Cayetano to yelp, “The Senate is under attack”! It turned out he was the boy who cried wolf, because investigations later showed that the chaos the attack meant to produce was a distraction or cover for Bato to escape. All friendly hands were on deck to help Duterte evade the questions leveled at her—even at the cost of blighting the Senate’s reputation. The Iglesia Ni Cristo, one of the organized religious sects that openly mobilizes partisan support for candidates and reportedly profits from the spoils of electoral victories, had organized mass protests to weigh in on the pro- and anti-Duterte hype.
(The Office of the President reciprocates the INC vote by appointing its members to key positions in government, notably in law enforcement and tax-collecting agencies. Former president Rodrigo Duterte picked police officer Edilberto Leonardo, an INC member, to join the team tasked with disbursing funds for the nationwide drug war operations.)
The pattern of Sara’s evasive mood when asked to account for her spending and other official acts recalls the day when she repeatedly shunned invites by the House to attend budget hearings. She must have been used to being above the fray, as it were, beyond the reach of decorum and level play. When she was mayor of Davao City from 2016 to 2022, her confidential funds totaled P2.7 billion, according to Commission on Audit records, averaging at P460 million per year in her last three-year term. The amounts are obscenely higher than the confidential fund allocations in other large cities (P240 million in Makati, P90 million in Quezon City) and even that of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (P444 million annually for the same 2020-2022 period).
She brought to her new job the same gung-ho approach to the dissipation of public funds when she assumed the dual role of vice president and education secretary in mid-2022. The impeachment complaint alleges, among other charges, that she irregularly spent in 11 days P125 million in confidential funds. An apparent fallout with a figurative crime partner in Malacañang led to attack dogs’ sniffing at her grocery bags. The one that contained Mary Grace Piattos attracted scrutiny, which eventually gave rise to fleshing out the charge sheet that now confronts the capacity of senators to judge with courage and wisdom. It is a reckoning that everyone wanted to avoid from day one, when the word “forthwith” was discovered to be related to opacity.
The impeachment court asked her to appear at the opening of her trial last Monday, July 6, 2026. True to form, she chose not to be conquered. She chose to be the master of her fate.
She did appear on the second day, more to spite than to submit to the authority of the court. She faced the press instead, not to answer questions but to pose before the cameras and to recite a few words borrowed (without acknowledging the author) from the 1875 poem “Invictus” (Latin for unconquered): “In this bloodbath and bludgeoning, I will be bloodied but unbowed.”
The imagery of a person who bows signifies submission to a higher power. The message, in effect, signifies her refusal to submit to a sovereign power which, by operation of a republican state, resides in the people through their representatives in Congress.
She engages in political jargon for selective governance. She takes part in a system by which she gains access to public funds, but shuns the part of that same system where an accounting of how those funds were used is demanded. She takes home the benefit, but does not bear the cost. She participates in a political process when profitable but rejects the system when it becomes inconvenient.
The impeachment trial of the vice president has so far shown that her ravenous appetite for resources and power is not matched by a keen interest in promoting safeguards against abuse.
haberia@gmail.com
