Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio has been mocking lawmakers, investigators and the courts for so long that she has been crowned the Queen of Impunity, insulting congresswomen as they were grilling her on her P125-million disbursement of the mislabeled Confidential and Intelligence Fund (CIFs) in the final 11 days of 2022. By law, she is not entitled to a single red centavo of CIF since she was operating based on the balance of Vice President Leni Robredo’s budget. Thanks to the generous Rodrigo Duterte, Robredo enjoyed zero CIF in 6 years.
She wanted her nemesis ACT Teachers Rep. France Castto out of the inquiry after she exposed her fraudulent disbursement of the bogus CIF. The reason? She was convicted of child abuse by a kangaroo court that never heard her defense and believed every false testimony by soldiers and paramilitary men who ordered children and teachers to leave their campus. Universally denounced as a continuation of Duterte’s impunity, the case is under appeal.
Then, Sara also demanded that Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo be kicked out of the panel because she resented her queries. Quimbo was the same congresswoman who defended Sara’s budget in record time last year. It was the first time in the history of Congress that a subject of inquiry had demanded that her inquisitors be ousted. Told curtly that her motions wouldn’t move, she groused, cried uncle and accused the erntire chamber of plotting against her, flabbergasting observers and even Sen. Koko Pimentel to suggest that Sara needed help. Koko should know. Overweening Duterte ambitions led to PDP-Laban being stolen from him.
Yet, there might be some legal authority underpinning the weird thinking of Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio. In July 2021, Rodrigo Duterte Sr. unveiled his theory that the vice president enjoys immunity from suit and must not be subjected to criminal investigation and prosecution. He broached the idea at a time when he was said to be seriously contemplating running for vice president in the May 2022 election. The theory burned splendidly and Duterte Sr. was scorched as he publicly proved his ignorance of the law. Edre Olalia, president of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), noted then that even the cherished presidential immunity from suit that presidents invoke “is not even spelled out in the present 1987 Constitution — unlike in 1973 Marcos Constitution — but only recognized in prevailing jurisprudence.” Of course, Duterte Sr. is hardly an authority on anything except the wanton misuse of CIF, the COVID-19 pandemic funds and uncontrolled borrowings, his total debt exceeding the debt of all previous presidents.
Duterte Sr. must have been thinking aloud when he talked about the fictive vice presidential immunity. Even if he did run for vice president and won, he would still be liable for the 30,000 deaths under his “war on drugs” and the thousands murdered, snatched and buried in unmarked graves by military and police forces ordered to launch offensive operations in Bicol, Eastern Visayas. In the Negros provinces under Memorandum Circular No. 32 and the covert operations of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) under Executive Order No. 70. His immunity is limited to Philippine jurisdiction. When he committed crimes against humanity and violated international humanitarian law (IHL), he is still liable and must prosecuted before the Intenational Criminal Court (ICC.)
Both Olalia and Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman warned that Duterte Sr.’s declaration effectively created his version of the Constitution and Philippine jurisprudence. Two other lawyers, then House Deputy Minority Leader Carlos Zarate and Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares, said Duterte’s strategy to escape accountability was “legally insane.” Zarata argued Duterte’s statement was just “a false self-assurance just to pander to himself and his allies” who also face prosecution after the end of the Duterte administration. Colmenares said the Duterte Sr. theory is “shameless” and “self-serving.”
It has been recycled by no less than Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio who has refused to answer pointed questions on her misuse of at at least P612.5-million in CIFs, the illegal disposition of cash to military officers not authorized to disburse money and the failure to utilize billions of pesos for projects of the Department of Education (DepEd), with zero accomplishments in the computerization and the school building repair programs. Implicit in her pig-headed insistence that no inquiry on the OVP nd DepEd scsams would be fair to her is the “immunity myth,” that what is sauce for the gander is not sauce for the goose. In short, she is above the law.
For that kind of thinking, Sara can’t face any investigative panel. She toyed with the Lower House, played games at the Senate and insulted the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI.) Sara is not entitled to her law. The tragedy is that the prosecutorial arm of this government is treating Sara as if she were untouchable.
The Dutertes are from “folie a deux” or shared psychosis. They have impunity in their DNA, believing they are fated to hold the reins of power in 2028 and the next 1,000 years. Just listen to Baste Duterte saying he will “volunteer” to head the Department of National Defense (DND) and he will wipe out the New People’s Army (NPA) and all activists in our midst. The entire trouble is that he is merely repeating the balderdash dished out daily by his sister. They simply don’t know what they are prattling about. A little learning is truly a dangerous thing. You saw it in Duterte Sr., Polong Duterte, Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio and this guy Baste. It is kakistocracy in one bloody family.
