by Diego Morra
To set things alright, the republic should set a high bar for candidates, and the first line of people’s defense against psychotics, sociopaths and plunderous candidates is to make it mandatory for all of them to undergo a battery of tests to immediately wean away the chaff from the grain.
Filipinos deserve to be led by public servants and lawmakers who know how to craft laws and not merely repeat what their consultants are saying, and must be committed not only about studying the law but also in abiding by the mandatory requirements of the Constitution to make laws that promote the welfare, economic condition and civil and political rights of every Filipino. Surely, early birds like Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio should not be averse to any psychiatric assessment similar to what her father undertook during trial of the annulment case filed by Elizabeth Zimmerman against him.
The verdict on Digong was simple but harsh: He was incapable of being true to his wife, and that the marriage contract he had signed was, like the July 2012 Arbitral Ruling, merely a scrap of paper. The court-appointed psychologist, case documents showed, maintained that Duterte maintained paramours, some of whom he introduced as his wives, to the disgust of Elizabeth. Duterte wanted Elizabeth to let him be what he was, and is, a slave to “biology.” Duterte, for sure, was not as loyal to a mate as a seahorse or an arawana. Elizabeth won the case fair and square, ending the trauma that trumped her for decades. The Pasay City Regional Trial Court (RTC) granted the plea of Elizabeth Zimmerman and freed her from despair and the psychological torture of suffering more years as a victim of infidelity.
The country should be spared of a similar infidelity in the custody of political power in the tragic event that Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio becomes president of this benighted country. This is the same Sara, who, in her obsession with media-hogging, spun an eerie story that she, too, was a victim of rape, to which the father chuckled: “She’s a drama queen.” At any rate most cases of rape happen at home, and the country’s earliest campaigner for the 2028 presidential race has not elaborated on her claim to being a rape victim. No less than 2.5-million Filipino kids would identify with her as victims of online sexual trafficking. Or the more than 140,000 Filipino pre-pubescent mothers.
Sara has a continuing battle with the truth, speaking one “truth” one day to be debunked by another “truth” the following day. In The Hague, she demands the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as president but denies the same in Manila. In their halcyon days, Sara described Bongbong as “not corrupt,” an indefatigable worker championing the cause of the social “laylayan” like her, and the teeming millions of voters should vote for him, and her, as the “garantisado” team, not “garantisabog ham-fisted clumsy oafs or thieves who would tote scrip hand over fist, the nation be damned. In less than two years, Sara’s minions would initiate a clash between her and Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, whom the vice president tagged as “tambaluslos,” a mythical Austronesian forest dweller with oversized genitalia, over some spat in the House of Representatives. By 2023, Sara’s trolls and crones would be manning the keyboards to contrive a “Marcos resign” movement as well as the silly demand for Sara to take over Malacanang. Add the pundits who attach too much meaning on a diurnal announcement.
To add more “luster” to her cachet, Sara is now pandering to the fondest desire of her humongous political operatives to complete the break with Bongbong. In her mea culpa speech, Sara apologized for committing a crime as serious as “helping” Marcos win as president. “My fellow countrymen, I apologize. I apologize if I helped elect BBM as president of our country.” Duterte Jr. is actually saying that she made Bongbong win, as if she poured in billions to the well-oiled campaign machinery financed by plutocrats, oligarchs and the economic dynasties that have made the Philippines poor even since the colonial times. Ang ganitong paghingi ng tawad ay tunay na huwad. Make no bones about it, Sara hates crowds, as she had affirmed time and again, and why would Filipinos believe her or even understand her truncated language?
By her admission, we shall know more about Sara. Her apology covers both her mens rea, or her mental state when she committed a “crime” as serious as supporting Marcos Jr. By campaigning for him and mobilizing her trolls and crones, Sara was also liable for her actus reus, or the guilty act. In her putrid monologue (with reporters held at bay under the no question rule), Duterte Jr. apologized for “widespread corruption in infrastructure projects that had caused massive floods, the outright abuse of institutions to serve vested political interests, the continuous rise in the prices of basic commodities, as well as the lack of food security and an effective health-care system.” In short, she is admitting her role in implementing the very same “crimes” she is accusing the Marcos administration of committing.
This really doesn’t square. Whoever crafted the Feb. 18, 2026 speech on the running for the presidency in 2028 made Sara look more than pathetic. The “paawa” effect cannot help her inasmuch as the real victims are those who have been stung by Sara and the narcissistic Duterte brood. The rosary of questions that hounds Sara cover her financial shenanigans, the misuse of billions of pesos in Davao City when she was mayor, the funding of the virtual Duterte private army comprised of 11,000 job-order casuals, the billions of pesos of disallowed expenditures at DepEd when she was its rarely-seen secretary, the P612.5-million in confidential and intelligence funds wasted, the payoffs to DepEd executives, the transfer of millions of pesos to military officers who are not authorized as disbursing officers and the thousands of well-paid Mary Grace Piattoses she has housed rent-free in her mind. When can we hear at least three sentences from Sara that are not affected by misology and linguistic mumbo-jumbo? Something better than “conditional threat,” or this suffocating pablum: “I cannot kneel before each and every Filipino to beg for forgiveness. Instead, I offer my life, my strength, and my future in the service of our nation.”#
