Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile believes Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte should face administrative sanctions for hitting a person in authority. Duterte figured in a scuffle with court sheriff Abe Andres on Friday in her effort to save informal settlers in Barangay Soliman from being evicted from their homes.
“I think the young mayor of Davao lost her temper. The poor person who got it, it was not his fault. He was just performing a job which was to execute the order of the court. I think the mayor went overboard,” Enrile said.
“They can subject her to an administrative case. You are defying the court, in the first place. That person was not the one who made the decision. And you have to give it to the man, he did not retaliate. That is resistance against a person of authority,” the Senate President said.
Enrile, a veteran lawyer, said the sheriff has the authority.
“If he did not execute that, he can be held for not implementing the order of the court,” he said. “She lost her cool. I am sure he will stand for it.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson, on the other hand, was supportive of Duterte, saying the situation could have gotten worse had the mayor not intervened in the demolition.
“Our countrymen who are criticizing her just see the act of hitting (the sheriff). They do not see the social dimension, the social impact of this issue to the constituents of Mayor Sara,” Lacson said.
“For all we know Mayor Sara could have saved a violent situation. The violent situation which happened between her and the sheriff could have prevented more violence,” the former police chief said.
Lacson said it is a “no brainer” that Duterte’s actions were wrong, but this could have saved more people from being hurt in the demolition.
Pro-poor
Gabriela party-list Rep. Emmerenciana de Jesus also expressed support for Duterte, who has gone on a five-day leave after figuring in a fight with Andres.
“I admire Mayor Sara Duterte for standing up for the embattled urban poor families of Davao who, while having to cope with the aftermath of floods, met the callous demolition attempt of the Davao sheriff,” De Jesus said in a statement.
“She stood up for the poor especially at a time of adversity,” she said.
Duterte said the scuffle “was an unfortunate incident and not my best moment.”
“What the mayor did could cover but a very brief respite for the urban poor families who will still face demolition, eviction and displacement amid the city’s ‘modernization’ and ‘urbanization’ projects. The housing problem in Davao is just a microcosm of the bigger housing problem in the country,” De Jesus said.
She said the Gabriela Women’s Party stands firm that the right solution to the nation’s housing problem would be decent jobs with just wages for workers, genuine agrarian reform for farmers, a national and sustainable industrialization program, and adequate and affordable basic social services.
“We may produce more Sara Dutertes, but still, unless we have a government that would seriously start to implement programs that truly address social inequities, the problem will persist,” she said.
Proud of daughter
In Davao City, Sarah’s father, Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, finally broke his silence yesterday by congratulating his daughter for a “good job” in punching Andres, who refused to follow what he said was a lawful order that would have prevented a chaotic eviction of more than 250 informal settlers in Barangay Soliman.
The elder Duterte expressed his all-out support for his daughter who could possibly be disbarred as a lawyer or be ousted as mayor for having punched Andres in the midst of a commotion caused by the demolition of shanties in the area.
The mayor asked the sheriff last Friday that she be given two hours as she would want to be present to avert any bloodshed during the demolition.
She said she had to attend first to the needs of the more than 20,000 affected by the flashfloods last Wednesday before she could proceed to Barangay Soliman.
But Andres went on with the eviction despite the mayor’s request and a riot erupted. A policeman and several other people were wounded and brought to the hospital.
No apologies
“Do not apologize. I am proud of you. I congratulate you. Tama na. Kung mawala ka sa trabaho ayaw kaguol (It was right. Do not worry if you lose your job and that you would be dismissed as mayor). Be proud of it because you were dismissed while protecting your fellowmen, especially the poor,” the elder Duterte said during his “Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa” weekly TV program yesterday.
The mayor was told by her father that the more reason for her to be happy and celebrate if she would be disbarred.
“You will not die if you will not be a lawyer anymore. Be happy with the thought that you were disbarred because you got mad because people were being trampled upon,” the father told his daughter.
The elder Duterte also said her daughter should not also worry if she would be ousted from office because in the next election he would still make her run for mayor.
“You will surely win because people know that you are ready to give your life to defend them. And if you punched a sheriff five times, make it 10 times the next time around,” he said.
However, the mayor told The STAR she was not able to watch her father’s TV show yesterday as she had to be out of her house early to attend to the needs of those who were affected by the floods.
“I was not able to watch him on TV. But I want to thank the vice mayor, my father, for supporting me. It is heartwarming that I find an ally in him,” she said.
‘I’m no God’
Duterte said there is no father who will not defend his daughter.
“Only God allowed His Son to be crucified on the Cross. But I am not God and I will defend my daughter,” he said.
He said his daughter could not be charged with indirect assault as there was no intention to stop a court eviction order.
“She did not stop the demolition. All she asked was just two hours to put order into the whole process as these people would not listen to policemen or even to the military. They would only listen to their mayor whom they have elected,” he said.
He admitted that the eviction order of Judge Emmanuel Carpio of RTC Branch 16 was legal and that Andres had jurisdiction in enforcing the order.
“But when there was already chaos in the area, the mayor’s authority already supersedes that of the judicial authority when there is already a breakdown of law and order. There was already a conflicting jurisdiction as it was no longer a judicial process but a problem of law and order. How could that be an indirect assault when there was already chaos and there was already an intent to harm or kill by the parties concerned?” he said.
“At that time the mayor was ordering the sheriff. That was in effect an order from the mayor because the mayor is a person in authority,” he added. – With Paolo Romero, Edith Regalado
