by Diego Morra
Impeached Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio may think that the Senate coup d’etat that shoved Senate President Tito Sotto aside and replaced him with Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano is a big win for her should think deeply, if she’s capable of it, since Sotto’s ouster falls squarely into Cayetano’s plan to march to Malacanang in 2028.
Why would Cayetano support Sara and place obstacles on the impeachment trial? As a lawyer who knows that there is a universe of evidence that the well-paid Duterte Jr. defense lawyers cannot debunk and miles of transcripts from testimonies that Sara only denied but never destroyed, the burden of sustaining her innocence rests squarely with her. Blanket denials from her social media warriors and stans do not have any probative value and the evidence adduced by the accusers, and the mass of information collated by the House justice panel militate against her hallucinations and her egregious justifications for financial shenanigans and violations of COA rules and circulars.
While Sara may bask about her “masterminding” the ouster of Sotto, she is in no position to declare that the Senate would dump her impeachment trial. The Senate coup is actually a two-stage ploy, first to kick out Sotto and Lacson as the nemeses of the Old Boy Network, and second, to get rid of Sarah herself by carefully shepherding senators to understand that by not convicting Sara, the Senate would be committing institutional suicide. Cayetano may pretend to be a Christian fundamentalist who considers himself to be God’s ambassador to the House of Sinners, the Senate, bus he is surely a political animal who thinks his time has come.
By meticulously handling the impeachment trial, Cayetano will be able to direct the limelight to himself and earn more political brownie points while Sara’s star fades. Cayetano, who used to frequent Ozone in Quezon City, is a political survivor unlike his fellow Spice Boy Mike Defensor, the spider now at the center of the Duterte dark web. As a lawyer, he can dutifully navigate the shallow waters of Sara’s defense, if her 16 lawyers could make some sense of the twisted statements that their principal has been spouting in the past two years. To be honest about it, it is no longer in Cayetano’s interest to salvage Sara’s career and neither would it be to his benefit to stick to the sinking Duterte ship.
As the Duterte political dynasty lost its foundation with the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte in March 2025, the conviction of Sara by the impeachment court will be like using a chainsaw to cut off the dynasty’s legs. The Lower House plenary that saw 257 out of 316 lawmakers voting to impeach her also proved that the purported pressure campaigns by the Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) and the PDP, the political party established by the late Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. that was snatched by Duterte partisans, were duds. The spotlight is thus on Cayetano, the newfangled Senate leader, whose mastery of wheeling and dealing must be exhibited to survive more than eight months at his post. It also becomes his mandatory duty to win back the support of the electorate, the millions of voters who actually want a bloodbath and the extermination of grafters right at the Senate.
In the light of the absence of the Dutertes during the plenary, making them legislators in absentia who do not care about their legislative functions and their function as representatives of their districts, as well as the changing of horses in midstream in The Hague, it is strange for the Dutertes to claim that they will win their cases. What should worry the Duterte cult is that, as revealed by Nicholas Kaufman, it is Honeylet Avancena, the partner of Rodrigo, and his daughter, Veronica or “Kitty,” who are controlling defense matters. Wasn’t Honeylet supposed to be barred from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for issuing statements that affected the court and the prosecutors? Kaufman, supposedly paid P150-million a month, will not be poorer for leaving the Duterte defense and steering clear of Honeylet and Veronica.
Aside from the impeachment trial, Cayetano will have another problem: The ICC has just confirmed the issuance of an arrest warrant against the long-absent Sen. Ronald de la Rosa, who materialized at the Senate precisely to witness the coup against Sotto, only to be chased by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) at the Senate. Earlier, a subpoena was issued to de la Rosa by the Philippine National Police (PNP) directing him to appear at Camp Crame for interrogation on the summary executions of civilians in Davao City during his time as police chief. Going by precedent, the Philippine government is mandated to surrender de la Rosa to the ICC to answer charges of his being a Duterte conspirator in the “tokhang” campaign.
As the Philippine government surrendered Rodrigo Duterte to the Interpol and ICC in 2025, it must likewise yield de la Rosa to the Interpol and ICC under Philippine law. The Supreme Court (SC) has been asked to restrain the NBI and other law enforcement agencies from taking custody of de la Rosa, who is wanted for the crimes against humanity committed when the Philippines was still a signatory to the Rome Statute that created the ICC. For all intents and purposes, ICC jurisdiction covers both Duterte and de la Rosa. It may not be long before Duterte gets a caregiver at the Scheveningen prison. First, de la Rosa. Second, Sen. Bong Go. There may be more. #