The abusive Sara Duterte

Guilty.

That is the verdict of many on the impeachment charges levelled against Sara Zimmerman Duterte, 46, the Vice President and the former secretary of the Department of Education (DepEd), from July 1, 2022-July 19, 2024.

Sixteen individuals filed the first impeachment complaint against Sara late afternoon of Monday, Dec. 2, 2024, in Congress. They represent groups like Magdalo, Mamamayang Liberal, Tindig Pilipinas, families of drug war victims and leaders of the Catholic Church.

The complaint has 11,222 words, 24 articles and 50 pages. It cites grounds enumerated in the 1987 Constitution: culpable violation of the Constitution; graft and corruption; bribery; betrayal of public trust; other high crimes.

Section 2 Article XI (Accountability of Public Officers) of the Constitution says: “The President, the Vice-President, the Members of the Supreme Court, the Members of the Constitutional Commissions and the Ombudsman may be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes or betrayal of public trust.”

It is not clear what exactly is a culpable violation of the Constitution, what is a high crime and what is a betrayal of public trust. Our 24-member Senate defines what these crimes are. If 16 senators want you out, you are dead meat. Impeachment is basically a shaming act, to make you appear vile, abusive, corrupt to the core and to stir the people’s blood with the searing language of the impeachment complaint. The trial is high drama, a legal rhetoric, a political process. A senator does not have to be literate or educated to cast a vote of conviction. Seven senators finished law.

Says San Beda Graduate School of Law dean Ranhilio Aquino: “The fact is that these offenses are precisely left undefined because impeachment is meant to be an exercise in ‘political justice,’ which is a determination made by politicians that a high official of government has rendered herself unfit for high office. That does not mean that such officials may be impeached for just about any offense, although the history of impeachment proceedings in the US leaves no doubt that impeachment is not reserved only for the most dramatic of infractions. Federal judges, who are impeachable officials under the laws of the United States, have been booted out of office for tax evasion, conspiracy to solicit bribes and making false statements to a grand jury. Andrew Johnson, 1868, was impeached by the US House of Representatives supposedly for violating the ‘Tenure of Office Act’ by removing the Secretary of War, although he escaped conviction by one vote.”

Of the 24 articles or charges, at least nine can stand scrutiny:

Articles 1 and 2. Sara failed to properly account for the P125 million in confidential and intelligence (CIF) funds given to the Office of the Vice President in 2022.

This is misuse of tax money, amounting to total abuse – P125 million disappeared in just 11 days, half of them holidays, in December 2022, at the rate of P11.363 million a day. A Mary Grace Piattos received huge sums. The Civil Registrar says there is no Filipino, dead or alive, by that name, even in Davao where Sara’s disbursing officer says Piattos comes from. Sara could not explain where and how she spent P500 million allotted the OVP.

Article 6. Sara could not explain where P12.3 billion in “unsettled balance” in the DepEd budget went or was spent in 2023. Was the money stolen?

Article 7. Sara left DepEd with P7-billion unliquidated cash advances; expenses not supported by receipts. If you cannot say where the money went, that’s stealing.

Article 8. P15.486 billion of the 2023 DepEd budget was unutilized. Yet, in 2023, per the Commission Audit, only 3.01 percent or 192 out of the target of 6,379 classrooms were constructed; only 2.75 percent or 208 out of the 7,550 classrooms targeted for repairs in 2023 were repaired. She had zero accomplishment for DepEd’s computerization project.

View the zero accomplishment against the 2022 education data for millions of Filipino 15-year-olds: 75 percent cannot read, cannot write, cannot count beyond 20 and do not know any science. In 2022, Filipino 15-year-olds performed the third worst or the worst in the world out of 81 countries for PISA basic tests in reading, math and science.

Sara betrayed the trust of not just today’s Filipinos but future generations.

Article 9. As DepEd secretary, Sara rigged biddings for laptops and other electronic devices. Two biddings for laptops worth P8 billion were marked by irregularities and by a conspiracy, “because of her oversight, lack of care and/or her apparent indifference.”

Article 13. Sara practiced law even while being the Vice President, a violation of Article VII, Section 13 of the Constitution which prohibits any other office or employment during her term as vice president.

Article 23. During the Oct. 18, 2024 presscon, Sara threatened to dig up the corpse of former president Marcos Sr. and throw it into the West Philippine Sea. She imagined to chop off the head of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Referring to BBM and company, she said “they can “drag me to hell”... “pagdating nila doon ako pa din Presidente ng Impiyerno.”

Article 24. On Nov. 24, 2024, Sara had a second meltdown.

“She admitted that she engaged and contracted the services of an assassin to ensure that the President, his wife Mrs. Liza Araneta Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez will be killed in case she is killed, thus showing the depths and/or extent of Respondent’s mental incapacity, her depravity and lack of mental fitness to continue holding the high Office of Vice President of the Philippines. The same constitute not only betrayal of public trust but also a High Crime which would warrant her immediate impeachment from Office.”

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