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EDITORIAL

The Zuleika Defense

Even a mother hen will threaten the predator. Does that mean the hen hired a hitman?

DT·8 July 2026, 11:00 pm·1 min read

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    Sara’s girl. Very interesting. Very mysterious. Everybody is curious.

    Pretty girl. Smart. They say there may be something more there.

    You people are sick. Very insensitive to Mans Carpio’s feelings. Also very curious, which we respect.

    Zuleika is chief of staff. Trusted person. Inner circle.

    They touched Zuleika, they moved Zuleika, they detained Zuleika and Sara went “kaboom.” Sara acted like they touched the one person they absolutely should not touch.

    You saw Sara before that night. Before the threat video. There was Sara peering out answering questions from a little window in Pulong’s office.

    She looked paranoid. Cornered. Furious. Feathers everywhere. A mother hen in a government office, basically, like the world had turned against her and the next knock was meant to take Zuleika away.

    Even a mother hen will threaten the predator. Does that mean the hen hired a hitman?

    Please. She is a hen. She has a beak, a hot chick, the confidence of a much larger animal.

    She flaps. Screams. She makes herself bigger than she is because the chick has to see it, the predator has to see it, the whole yard has to see it. I am here. I am dangerous. Do not touch. “I’ll even kill the President for you.”

    That’s somebody watching someone get dragged and saying the ugliest thing possible because the camera was on and the rage was bigger than the brain.

    Sara’s flaw is her loyalty is so extreme it makes her reckless. Too tribal.

    This is the same Sara who, in 2022, had the presidency within reach but stepped aside for Bongbong.

    Whatever people think of that decision now, it showed something basic about her. She can be moved by loyalty or whatever name you want to give it.

    Sometimes that loyalty makes her useful. Sometimes stupid. Sometimes it makes her easy to play. Sometimes, as with Zuleika, it makes her explode.

    So what exactly is the injury here? The Marcos family was threatened? The state was destabilized? The country was offended? Or Zuleika did not feel loved enough?

    Because those are different things.

    The prosecution has to stop sliding between injuries.

    One minute it is Marcos. The next minute it is sedition. And the next it is public trust. But the video keeps pointing back to Zuleika.

    That is the problem.

    If the prosecution cannot say which harm is the impeachable harm, do they have a case?

    If they say “betrayal of public trust,” what trust was betrayed? Maybe betrayal of Mans Carpio, frankly. And even that we cannot prove.

    The public trusted Sara Duterte with the Office of the Vice President. With the duty not to use that office against the state.

    That is the problem with Article 4.

    The video does not show Sara using the OVP, its staff, its money to attack Marcos. It shows Sara using Marcos to make a point to Zuleika.

    Marcos was the name in the threat. Zuleika was the reason for the threat.

    And if Zuleika was the reason, then the prosecution has to prove why this private rage becomes public betrayal.

    Condemn the words. The threat. The grotesque collapse of judgment. Do not call it the republic bleeding unless you can show where the republic was actually stabbed.

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