Sara’s latest drama falls flat

The Quezon City Regional Trial Court, Branch 98, on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Vice President Sara Duterte over three counts of grave threats arising from her November 2024 remarks that she had arranged for an assassin to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez. The court found probable cause to hold her for trial and set bail at P120,000 per count, or P360,000 in total.

The arrest warrant quickly became a political communications battle. On one side are the authorities, who have a legal obligation to implement a judicial order. On the other is Sara, who has a clear political incentive to turn the arrest into another chapter in her long-running victimhood narrative.

Sara was quick to get to work. On Saturday, she went to court with her lawyers. But instead of simply posting bail, getting it over with and going home, she turned the occasion into a media frenzy, repeatedly asking what would happen to her once she entered the court premises.

She insisted that members of the media accompany her throughout the process, saying she feared for her life. This was despite assurances from her own lawyers and court personnel that her concerns had been addressed and her safety ensured.

Sara’s communications plan was obvious. Frame her arrest as a threat to her safety and turn herself into the victim.

The problem? She oversold it.

How does the country’s second highest official, reportedly protected by 400 security personnel, become the victim?

At one point, she even suggested that she could suffer the same fate as martyred democracy icon Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. if she entered the court facility without the media.

Wow. The nerve.

Ninoy did not threaten to have anyone assassinated. He was, in fact, the victim of political violence. Sara and her family, by contrast, are dispensers of naked violence.

The authorities were wise enough to make the process as procedural and institutional as possible. A dramatic arrest involving a huge police contingent could have been disastrous for the administration, and a gift for Sara.

Had that happened, her lawyers would not need to sputter legal arguments left and right. Sara would need only the “money shot” of a political martyr being dragged away by an oppressive state.

But none of that materialized. Instead, the restrained process pushed the public back toward the very thing Sara actually said and did in November 2024.

Sara tried her best to paint herself once again as the victim of political persecution. To the Vice President, her once-upon-a-time dynastic bestie is using the full machinery of the state to throw the entire kitchen sink at her. She is facing impeachment proceedings and investigations, and now a criminal case and an arrest warrant.

But this proves to be shaky.

First, the authorities did not give her the political drama she needed to breathe life into that narrative. The warrant and the posting of bail were handled with restraint and institutional procedure. It was not cinematic. There were no police handcuffing her, no dramatic confrontation, no spectacle worthy of prime time television.

Second, victimhood works best when the supposed victim is innocent. But that is a difficult sell here. Millions saw Sara’s public meltdown in November 2024, when she said she had arranged for an assassin to kill the highest officials of the land. Millions also saw her at another press conference appearing to gesture that she would cut off the President’s head.

Those are not exactly the visuals of an innocent victim. They are the actions of an intimidator.

Of course, Sara is entitled to due process, something many others were denied during the Duterte regime’s bloody reign. But political communications do not operate like a courtroom. People remember images, words, gestures and emotions. And the images surrounding Sara’s threats are not particularly helpful to her persecution narrative.

Taken together with the ICC arrest warrant issued against her father for mass murder charges, which sent him to The Hague; another ICC arrest warrant against super-Duterte loyalist Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, which forced him into hiding under some rock and the detention of Duterte allies Sens. Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta over plunder charges, the story is not one of persecution but a broader pattern of violence, plunder and abuse of power being confronted by law and justice.

The administration tried to make the process clinical, procedural and institutional, projecting strength while exercising the rule of law. The less dramatic the event was, the less useful it became to the Vice President.

Sara, on the other hand, needed political drama. Her persecution story rests heavily on visual politics. The more chaotic and emotionally charged the judicial process becomes, the easier it is to manufacture the image of a political martyr.

The contrast is glaring. The state decided to be dull and procedural. Sara was overly dramatic. The administration wants the warrant to speak for itself. Sara wants the cameras to speak louder.

For now, Sara’s latest attempt at victimhood has backfired. She went to court hoping to control the optics and the narrative, but was given very little drama to work with. In the end, she exposed herself as a paranoid leader who is afraid of the very things she threatens her political opponents with.

That is not a victim, but someone caught in the consequences of her own death threats. A threat-maker suddenly discovering what it feels like to be at the sharp end of a threat: the threat of accountability.