Blood, Bread, and Butter: The Dutertes’ Trail of Power

By Marlo J. Gordoncillo, Jr.

Way before Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s rise to the presidency in 2016, the Duterte family had already begun making a killing in their posts, often to the detriment of families smaller than theirs. Boasting terms marked with human rights violations, the Duterte family business is literally marred by blood.

Under oath in a Senate probe last October 28, 2024, Duterte admitted to keeping a death squad over his 22 years as the Davao city mayor to control crime, thereby confirming the urban legend-like existence of the Davao Death Squad allegedly responsible for the deaths of about 1400 people. This damning confession is merely the tip of the Dutertes’ dagger dislodged in the International Crime Court’s (ICC) efforts to examine extrajudicial killings in his administration’s “war on drugs” that left 30 000 dead in its wake, many of which were from the urban poor, and not proven to be linked to illegal drugs. In his time as the mayor and then the president, he gave the police a license to kill, encouraging them to push crime suspects to fight back so that the officers’ killings are justified.

While the blood-ridden streets have long dried since the Duterte patriarch stepped down from power, Duterte has taken “full responsibility for whatever happened in the actions taken by law enforcement agencies of this country to… stop the serious problem of drugs affecting our people,” and he is taunting the ICC to hasten the investigation. As of January 24 this year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has said that ICC representatives have been in and out of the country to establish boundaries regarding the government’s cooperation in their investigation, given the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome statute in 2018.

Clearly, there has been a lack of accountability for the killings. For instance, only eight police officers have been prosecuted for the thousands of ruthless killings in the anti-drug campaign, including the court convictions for the case of Kian delos Santos. Meanwhile in 2017, PRRD’s son and incumbent representative of Davao City’s first district Paolo Duterte was accused of easing and then covering up the seized shipment of $125M worth of narcotics from China.

One piece of falsified evidence at a time, the police have made monsters out of breadwinners, headlines out of students, and numbers out of names. One piece of buried evidence at a time, the powerful make anesthesia out of fear, justification out of judgment, and applause out of permission. The irony of the Duterte drug war is jarring — ordinary Filipino families are carelessly ruined on the off-chance that they are linked to drugs, but powerful families could easily loosen Lady Justice’s blindfold with their hands of iron.

Taking the lives of Filipinos through direct violence is one thing, but taking away from the future of Filipinos is another hell of a drug — something befitting the unwashed forte of another Duterte, Inday Sara. Never has the whole Philippines seen this kind of father-daughter bonding since ABS-CBN’s hit teleserye Wildflower (2017), where Julio Ardiente is highly reminiscent of PRRD, and Emilia Ardiente-Torillo could very well be written after the current vice president. It is this kind of senseless sensationalization that shows how the Dutertes, like any other political family, thirst for relevance and power.

Before the midterm elections in which PRRD eyes a return to the highest seat in the Davao City local government, his daughter had done the following:

• fail to account for about P612.5 million in confidential funds for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and Department of Education (DepEd);
• evade questions of transparency and accountability about the proposed Office of the Vice President (OVP) budget for 2025;
• release a half-baked children’s storybook to hush those she thinks are politicizing a budget hearing;
• introduce the Philippines’ most popular fictitious person since Darna, Mary Grace Piattos–a supposed signatory to acknowledgment receipts submitted to justify expenditure;
• leave the Department of Education (DepEd) with P12 billion in disallowances, suspensions, and charges;
• sever her once Marvin-and-Jolina-like love for the President;
• threaten to kill the President after being asked about her safety when her chief of staff was detained for failing to address inquiries about the funds;
• and have a public meltdown, among other supposed high crimes.

This list could only cover the most notable of this melodrama, escalating to impeachment efforts covering 24 articles of impeachment against the self-proclaimed designated survivor. The braid of lies was made by one hairpin trigger — the anomaly surrounding public funds. Like a thief caught red-handed, Sara Duterte then revealed most of the pieces of either her downright incompetence at getting away with crime or her misunderstood clout-chasing tactics.

For now, Sara Duterte is the Vice President, benefiting from solid popular support in her bailiwick. For now, Rodrigo Duterte is under investigation and yet still running for a position. For now, Paolo Duterte and Baste Duterte hold office. It is a family of outspoken people: Sara grew up to punch a court official, and Tatay lived to call the Pope a “son of a whore.” It is a family with friends: in amicable connection with sex trafficking and child abuse defendant Apollo Quiboloy. It is a family of whiplash: Sara is stubborn, and she says Tatay is hard to love. It is a family of warm mundanity: they like motorbikes and karinderyas. Most importantly, it is a ruling Filipino family — keeping hand-me-down skeletons in their closets instead of mothballs between hand-me-down clothing.