COLUMN | Sara Duterte’s year-long getaway from justice

We are not surprised. In a country where twelve of fifteen justices owe their robes to Rodrigo Duterte, expecting the Supreme Court to hold his daughter to account is like expecting the rain to stop because we’ve had enough of it. We have long learned how to live in this republic, damp and shivering.

And yet, even with expectations buried in floodwater, the July 25 ruling still lands like a slap of cold rain: four impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte, none dismissed for lack of evidence, all thrown out because they dared to cluster too closely on the calendar. Accountability, apparently, is just another casualty of the monsoon. Please check back in twelve months, if the storm hasn’t swept the rest of us away.

Outside, families mop up the aftermath of Tropical Storm Crising, wringing out school uniforms that will never quite dry, salvaging notebooks warped with water stains. They are told, as always, to be patient. Patience in this country is a tax paid only by the powerless.

This is what the Court refers to as fidelity to the Constitution. To the rest of us, it looks like what Akbayan Representative Chel Diokno calls it: “Sa desisyong ito, talo ang taumbayan. Talo ang pananagutan.” (In this decision, the people lose. Accountability loses.)

The “one‑year bar rule,” meant to keep nuisance complaints at bay, has become an umbrella for the untouchable: file a throwaway impeachment early in the year, and enjoy twelve months of immunity. 

Sara Duterte has just bought herself a year‑long holiday from accountability, a full twelve months to rebuild her image, organize her political machine, and pray that when February 2026 rolls around, our anger has already evaporated, like floodwater under a punishing sun.

Meanwhile, the cost of delay piles up like uncollected debris after a storm. Billions in confidential funds—so secret they barely exist on paper—have vanished. Under Duterte’s full year as DepEd Secretary, only 192 of 6,379 promised classrooms were built—barely 3%. Another 5,207 classrooms needing repairs never made it past procurement. 

“Binaha na nga ang kabataan,” Kabataan Representative Renee Co said, “binuhusan pa ng malamig na tubig ang galit natin laban sa katiwalian ni Sara Duterte.” (The youth were already flooded—yet now our outrage over Sara Duterte’s corruption is doused with cold water.)

The Supreme Court calls this due process. ACT Teachers Representative Antonio Tinio calls it a “legal blessing” for those who worked to kill the trial. Akbayan Representative Perci Cendaña says it plainer: “The Supreme Court has reduced itself to being the Supreme Coddler of Vice President Sara Duterte.”

For ordinary Filipinos, this boils down to one cruel truth: justice can wait, but the storms will not. Families still hammer tarpaulins into the spaces where their walls used to stand. Children still study under leaking roofs. And we are told, once again, to wait—for courts, for justice—as though waiting will ever favor anyone but the powerful.

February 2026—the date they say justice might return. As if outrage were a faucet we could shut off for a year, as if justice patiently queues, soaked and shivering, waiting its turn. The powerful stay warm and dry, stockpiling excuses, while we keep scooping water with our bare hands.

Justice postponed is justice drowned. Sara Duterte gets time to polish her image while our outrage rots—another year of impunity choking what little faith we have left in the system, another year of watching justice evaporate before it ever reaches us.