by Diego Morra
It’s not far-fetched that Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio will lose lawyers in her defense panel if reports that she smacked one counsel with a laptop. As a lawyer herself with an 80% grade in her bar exam, Sara should have known physical assaults against a colleague warrants sanctions from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and possibly disbarment.
Purportedly, the lawyer got her goat for (a) recommending that Sara resign as vice president to escape from the impeachment trial and for advancing the wrong excuse that the billions of pesos contained in her bank accounts were included in (b) the “others” category in the annual Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs), which is as bad as the other justification, that (c) the cash withdrawals and deposits only “passed through” her bank accounts. These strange justifications have been shot down by accountants, auditors, business students and lawyers, making the defense tack ridiculous. Denying that she had those bank accounts, along with other members of the Duterte families only worsens Sara’s case.
This laptop-throwing episode further strengthens the demand of former Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III for Sara to seek help, taking into consideration the description of Rodrigo Duterte that Sara is not only a “drama queen” but is doubly stubborn and insists on having her way all the time. We support the former senator’s plea inasmuch as citizens of the republic deserve officials who are not sociopaths, narcissists and solipsists. This is like parents subjecting their babies to newborn screening to find out which ailments are likely to affect their kids. Sara notoriously punched a sheriff in Davao City for implementing a court order even if the judge who rendered the ruling was related to her. If violence is her second nature, it is all the more necessary to protect the Filipino people from her terrible proclivity.
Going by reports emanating from the Duterte camp itself, at least six of Sara’s lawyers suggested that she resign from her post. That is a full 37.5% of the members of her defense panel. For Sara, this is an insult inasmuch as she had been pleading for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to quit and deliver to her all power and pelf on a silver platter. It is unconscionable to say the least, since it is Marcos Jr. who should resign as part of the scheme that Ramil Madriaga exposed: That there was a “deal” for Marcos Jr. to quit midway his term to pave the for Sara’s ascension to power. The scheme was apparently hatched by Duterte Sr. himself to ensure that Sara enjoys nine years at the Palace a la Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Indeed, the more years in power, the more opportunities for graft.
At her age, it is practically impossible for Sara to excise her temper tantrums. As they say, you can’t teach old dogs new tricks. Yet, meeting psychoanalysts and having several sessions with professionals may allow the Filipino people to know why Sara behaves the way she does. Even her grandiose claims and apocryphal statements, including the one about she having been raped, will be analyzed and confirmed or debunked during those sessions on the couch. Her couch sessions would be more pleasant than her impeachment trial at the Senate. They would allow Sara to understand herself and perhaps excise the devils in her mind that compel her to suffer from cacoethes daily.
Moreover, what compels her to demand a battalion of security men to keep off the sans-culottes from approaching her, the very people she professes to serve in the same vein that Sen. Bong professes to adore Rodrigo Duterte but hasn’t flown to The Hague to join him at the Scheveningen detention facility? She purportedly demanded that an airlift wing be assigned to her exclusive use, raising quizzical looks in Malacanang. This demand only reinforces the theory that she believes that she is entitled to all the powers of the presidency only that in Philippine history there was no such animal as a shared presidential term. Indeed, Sara has started talking about her being fated or ordained to be President. What this means is that, for her, Marcos Jr. is merely a tool and, to use the cliché, a “useful idiot.”
Conversely, Sara is regarded by many observers as suffering from delusions of grandeur or GDs in the fashion of US President Donald Trump, only that she is not glib, cannot string three English sentences seamlessly and fouls up everything even when reading her speech or her scripted statements. If she cannot speak clearly in an extemporaneous manner, without prompting, and straight from the heart, how can she represent the republic in the community of nations? We don’t need her violence and neither can we be generous with her massacre of the English language.
Let us return to our sheep. Sara’s lawyers have not clarified this story about the laptop smashing episode. The brazen behavior, if true, deserves not only IBP sanctions but also word from Sara’s supposed sponsor, the Supreme Court. All Duterte appointees to the high court should be beholden to the detainee in The Hague. They have been elevated to the High Court not to protect the interest of the Dutertes and their minions. Ang kabayaran is the rendering of impartial justice, a very precious commodity that should be beyond the commerce of man. “People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them,” Eric Hoffer said.#
