bully who cried ‘bully’

Back in high school, we had a teacher who would scold the entire class for talking, then spend the next 20 minutes talking about how rude that was. She never quite saw the irony.

Reading about Atty. Lorna Kapunan’s recent performance, I couldn’t help but remember that teacher.

Private prosecutor Kapunan called Vice President Sara Duterte’s lead defense counsel, Atty. Sheila Sison, a “bully” and “bastos” in a press conference because Sison had the audacity to object — heatedly — to the prosecution’s decision to withdraw three of the four articles of impeachment against her client.

Sison argued that you could not accuse someone, shout it out to the Senate and the public, then walk away without letting the accused answer. That was Attorney Sison lawyering — literally her job description.

Kapunan then apologized to Sison. “She is not the bully,” she said. “It is the Vice President who is the bully.”

Kapunan explained that Duterte had “attacked all the institutions” — the House, the judiciary, the impeachment court, and the Senate. She called Duterte the “real bully” and rejected her David-and-Goliath framing entirely, insisting that it was Duterte who was the aggressor.

A sitting Vice President criticizing institutions is now a “bully”? Since when did criticism of government bodies become an act of aggression? The last I checked, holding institutions accountable is the entire point of democracy.

When the prosecution drops three articles of impeachment after months of preparation and millions of pesos spent, someone should call it out.

When the Senate says it can’t even provide coffee for the defense team but somehow finds money for a prosecution that goes nowhere, someone should speak up. If that’s bullying, then I may be considered a bully too.

Kapunan’s logic gets funnier the longer you look at it. She defended Sison by saying the lawyer was just “echoing the statements of Vice President Sara Duterte.” So Sison is innocent because she’s just doing her client’s bidding.

But Duterte is the bully for... speaking out? For defending herself? For pointing out that they could not unring the bell after they’d rung it to the whole country.

The prosecution spent months building a case. They presented evidence. Then they dropped most of it. And when the defense objected, Kapunan called them the bullies.

Call it “bully deflection” — the classic trick of turning the tables on a critic rather than answering the criticism, hoping the issue itself gets buried.

Duterte’s camp pointed out that the prosecution’s withdrawal of charges deprived her of the right to clear her name. Instead of addressing that point, Kapunan labeled the defense a bully. See how that works? Sweeping the real issue under the rug while pointing fingers elsewhere. Look over here, not over there.

Duterte’s response was sharper than Kapunan expected.

“Lorna Kapunan calling a defense counsel a bully is like calling David the aggressor against Goliath,” Duterte said. “It is a convenient way to vilify the person defending against an overwhelming display of political power.”

That’s not bullying at all, just a fair point. When one side has the subpoena power of the House of Representatives, the resources of the state, and the media spotlight, that’s a lot of finger-pointing from someone who started the fight.

By the way, let’s not forget the money. Atty. Paolo Panelo estimated that the abandoned impeachment articles cost taxpayers at least P1 billion. Whether the exact figure is P1 billion or P14.55 million over 44 trial days (as the Senate President claimed), it’s still our money. It was still wasted, and a case that went nowhere before a single vote.

If criticizing the waste of public funds makes one a bully, then every taxpayer in this country should be proud to wear the label.

Kapunan said it was time to “call a spade a spade.” Fine.

Here’s a spade: the prosecution dropped their own charges, and now they’re upset that the defense is pointing out how absurd that is.

Here’s another spade: calling the person who objects to that absurdity a bully is rather a distraction and a way to silence criticism.

Can’t anyone speak up and criticize when need be? Kapunan seems to think criticism is fine when it comes from her side. But when the Vice President criticizes institutions, she’s a bully.

When a defense lawyer objects to a prosecution that quit halfway, she’s “bastos.” The rules keep changing depending on who’s holding the microphone.

Plainly speaking, you cannot accuse someone of wrongdoing, spend public money pursuing those accusations, drop them, and then call the accused a bully for complaining. Evidently, it’s a political magic trick — make the accusations appear, make the case disappear, and make the accused the villain.

And if we’ve learned anything from this circus, it’s that Filipinos shouldn’t be fooled twice.