One is almost tempted to admire the sheer audacity of it. Almost. If it weren’t so embarrassingly transparent, Sara Duterte’s sudden turn to the Supreme Court would be a case study in how not to feign indifference.

At first, she dismissed it with a smirk. Two days after the House of Representatives impeached her, she quipped that heartbreak is far worse than losing one’s political perch.

“Alam ‘nyo, mas masakit pa ang maiwan ng boyfriend o girlfriend kaysa ma-impeach ka sa House of Representatives (You know, getting left by a boyfriend or girlfriend hurts more than being impeached in the House of Representatives),” she told a February 7 news conference, as if she were discussing some trivial office reshuffle rather than the prospect of an ejection from office.

More than a week later, there she was, petition in hand, begging the high court to make it all go away.

How very peculiar. One does not usually file emergency motions to the highest court in the land over something that supposedly stings less than a romantic rejection. If she is as unbothered as she claimed, then why this? Why the rush to find technical loopholes if she truly believes in the rock-solid innocence she projects?

Her maneuvering is a well-worn script: deflect and when it fails, cry “constitutional infirmity” as if accountability itself is the real injustice.

‘Quiboloy lovers’

If her legal theatrics weren’t already revealing, the company she keeps makes it all the more telling. Her petition coincides with another filed by a group from her family’s territory, among them a man in barong best known for representing the country’s premier doomsday preacher and celestial impersonator with a marketing plan – the alleged child sex offender and human trafficker Apollo Quiboloy.

It is quite a telling alignment. She might have noticed how her defense is being led by the same figures who thrive in the murky corridors of legal evasion.

It would take a truly great feat of self-delusion to pretend that Sara Duterte and her father, Rodrigo, are anything but devoted lovers of Quiboloy. Not in any romantic sense, of course, although one wonders whether such a distinction even matters when the affair is one of power, patronage, and political expediency.

Sara, much like her father, is perfectly at ease sharing the limelight with the man who stands accused of morally-bankrupt acts, things that would make even the moderately shameless blush and throw up. But she is not alone in this unholy alliance.

Feast your eyes on the Duterte wing of the detained preacher’s fan club, an ensemble of the ambitious and the ever-calculating Quiboloy lovers (again, not romatically) seeking Senate seats.

• Raul Lambino – former presidential adviser for Northern Luzon whose idea of governance may now include kissing the ring of a detained preacher. Quiboloy lover.
• Phillip Salvador – once a movie star, now stuck in a low-budget role as Quiboloy’s professional enabler. (When the scripts stop coming, I guess you take what you can get.) Quiboloy lover.
• Dante Marcoleta – the loud congressman who rants about corruption but somehow never notices when the elephant in the room is the very person who raised his hand. Classic case of selective outrage. Quiboloy lover.
• Bato dela Rosa – the senator who thinks governance means barking orders and cracking skulls. Quiboloy lover.
• Bong Go – Duterte’s human shadow, following so closely he probably tucks in the old man at night. Always eager to serve, even if it means polishing the pulpit of a disgraced preacher. Quiboloy lover.
• Vic Rodriguez – briefly Marcos Jr.’s executive secretary, now Duterte yes-man. If principles had a price tag, we can guess what would most likely be on clearance. Quiboloy lover.
• Jimmy Bondoc – Does anyone remember him? Neither do most people. One-hit wonder turned politician, hanging around like a bad song you can’t get out of your head. Quiboloy lover.
• Jayvee Hinlo – disputed PDP-Laban deputy secretary general for the Visayas, which means he’s politically relevant in the same way background actors are relevant to a movie. Just hoping someone remembers his name. Quiboloy lover.

Seriously, I think their devotion isn’t to Quiboloy himself but to the machinery of influence he represents. But their calculations may soon crumble under their own weight, for while Quiboloy enjoys the legal presumption of innocence, he and his followers have utterly failed to manufacture even the illusion of it in the court of public opinion.

Illusion of invincibility

Now, back to the impeachment. In another theater of political delay, the Senate, slow-footed as ever, drags its heels on convening an impeachment court. Senate President Francis Escudero says no trial will take place until mid-2025.

They say “justice delayed is justice denied,” but in this country, justice is often not just delayed but sabotaged by those who profit from its absence.

From the looks of it, Sara Duterte is sweating like a stuck pig. If impeachment was so insignificant to her just as she projected barely two weeks ago, why this desperate appeal?

It’s clear now that her nonchalance was a Duterte-style act, one quickly abandoned the moment she realized that the political machinery may not be as pliable as her father’s tenure led her to believe. Now, she clings to procedural lifelines, hoping that legal obfuscation will do what public confidence no longer can: keep her in power.

Perhaps she will succeed. Perhaps the Senate will stall, the high tribunal will entertain her pleas, and the familiar dance of impunity will continue.

But make no mistake because this is not the demeanor of a woman who believes she has done nothing wrong. Rather, this is the flailing of a politician who once thought herself untouchable, now scrambling to undo the consequences of her own hubris.

For all that earlier Duterte bravado, it’s clear now that the impeachment may not have just broken her heart, but it has shattered her illusion of invincibility as well.

Digong 2028?

The crumbling illusion isn’t just confined to Manila. It is alive and well in the Dutertes’ Southern Mindanao stronghold from where we are hearing Pantaleon Alvarez, Davao del Norte’s resident Digong loyalist, virtually surrendering to the thought that Sara is already damaged goods.

Alvarez somehow manages to stay relevant despite having the political charisma of a parking ticket. Note that he has shown loyalty to the father, but not the daughter. He’s clearly still nursing a grudge against Sara, probably because she was the one who shoved him off the House speaker’s chair during her father’s administration. So now, he’s peddling the idea that if Sara gets the boot, Daddy Duterte will rise from the political grave and run for president in 2028.

His argument? The 1987 Constitution bans the reelection of a president, but wait – Digong isn’t the president anymore, so technically, he could run again! Ah, yes, the kind of legal acrobatics that only the truly desperate can pull off. 

But let’s get real. Anyone who’s seen the aging Duterte wobble across a stage knows this legal debate is pointless and borderline comedy. The old man can barely walk straight, let alone run for president or run a barangay. Pastilan. – Rappler.com