15/06/2026
The Selective Sword: How the Philippine Justice System Exempts the Powerful
When the Philippine Supreme Court unseated its own Chief Justice, Maria Lourdes Sereno, in 2018, it didn't just remove a judge—it rewrote the rules of the game. By bypassing the explicit constitutional mandate of impeachment in favor of a highly controversial quo warranto petition, the High Court sent a chilling message across the archipelago: The law is no longer a shield for the independent; it is a weapon for the administration.
This engineered ouster exposed a profound, systemic rot. In the years that followed, the weaponization of the judiciary morphed into an even deeper institutional crisis—a glaring double standard where ordinary citizens and low-level lawyers are struck down by the full force of the law, while the very architects of this broken system remain untouchable.
The Strict Rules for the Small
To see the double standard in sharp relief, one only needs to look at how swiftly the Supreme Court disciplines officers of the court for lapses in decorum:
Atty. Jesus Falcis was handed a swift one-year suspension for using profanity in a social media post directed at political opponents.
Larry Gadon was unanimously disbarred (15–0) by the Supreme Court after launching into a vicious, profanity-laced viral tirade against a journalist.
In these cases, the High Court acted with decisive institutional fury. The rationale? Lawyers must uphold the highest standards of dignity, morality, and respect for the law. On paper, it is a noble standard. In practice, it highlights a maddening hypocrisy.
The Total Exemption for the Dutertes
While private lawyers face professional ruin for coarse language, former President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte have spent years elevating profanity, public intimidation, and explicit threats of violence into a tool of governance. Yet, the domestic justice system remains paralyzed.
When Rodrigo Duterte used presidential press conferences to hurl vulgarities at political opponents, order the shooting of quarantine violators, and publicly humiliate human rights advocates, he was shielded by presidential immunity. Now out of office, his legal vulnerabilities have shifted away from domestic accountability. It is telling that the only tribunal aggressively pursuing him for alleged crimes against humanity is not in Manila, but in The Hague, through the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Similarly, Vice President Sara Duterte has repeatedly used inflammatory language and aggressive rhetoric on the public stage. Because she is an impeachable official, the Supreme Court cannot touch her via standard code-of-conduct mechanisms. Accountability for her actions is trapped behind the wall of the House of Representatives—a highly politicized arena where justice is traded as currency, dependent entirely on shifting legislative alliances rather than the objective rule of law.
A Backdoor for the State, a Trapdoor for the People
The legacy of the Sereno ruling remains the original sin of this modern era of legal weaponization. By validating a legal loophole—claiming that unfiled paperwork from years prior made her appointment "void from the beginning"—the Court proved that any institutional safeguard can be dissolved if the political will is strong enough.
This is the definition of a broken system:
For the administration's targets: The law is a surgical scalpel, digging up technicalities, ignoring statutory deadlines, and manufacturing novel legal doctrines to enforce compliance or removal.
For the political elite: The law is an impenetrable fortress, built out of constitutional immunities, slow-moving political trials, and selective institutional blindness.
When the Supreme Court aggressively polices the speech of ordinary lawyers to "protect the integrity of the judiciary," but stands by while political giants threaten the fabric of democratic institutions, it ceases to be an independent branch of government. It becomes a gatekeeper of privilege.
Until the legal mechanisms used to tear down independent figures like Sereno are turned with equal vigor toward the abuses of executive power, the Philippine justice system will remain exactly what it looks like today: a hammer for the powerless, and a shield for the powerful.
