Bail posted, no mugshot: Inside Sara Duterte’s court drama
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte walked out of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court on Saturday after posting bail, but not before a tense standoff over courthouse stairs and security fears. The warrant of arrest, issued on Friday, covered three charges of grave threats leveled against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and members of his family.
Before heading inside, Duterte balked at climbing two flights of stairs. She publicly recalled the 1983 assassination of the late Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. as he descended the boarding stairs at the airport now bearing his name, a sharp historical jab at the President’s family. Claiming she felt unsafe amid hundreds of police officers and alleging her family had been tailed, she also rejected a small elevator. Duterte stated she trusts neither the courts nor the police, pointing out that her assigned security detail, the Vice Presidential Security and Protection Group, was pulled down from 400 personnel to roughly 325 after 75 officers were removed in July 2024.
Once inside, the standard booking process took an unusual turn. Duterte submitted a pre-taken photograph instead of posing for a police mugshot, and her fingers appeared spotless, indicating no ink-and-roll fingerprinting took place.
Her lawyer, Paul Lawrence Lim, argued that standard booking procedures only apply to individuals who are physically arrested, making them unnecessary since Duterte presented herself voluntarily. Critics quickly called out the sequence as preferential treatment. Human rights lawyer Maria Sol Taule noted the stark contrast with ordinary Filipinos and anti-corruption protesters, who often face strict weekend office closures, long queues, and prolonged detention without similar legal shortcuts.
With the immediate arrest warrant now lifted, the legal pressure is mounting on multiple fronts. Duterte is simultaneously fighting a Senate impeachment trial aimed at stripping her of office and slapping her with a permanent ban from holding any government position in the Philippines. These ongoing criminal proceedings and court dates also threaten to disrupt her periodic international travel, which includes jail visits to her father at the International Criminal Court detention facility in The Netherlands.
