Bob Tacto's columns

MANILA — The date September 4, 2026, will be recorded in Philippine history as a day of profound legal and political reckoning. When the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 98 issued an arrest warrant for Vice President Sara Duterte for grave threats, it tore through the veil of invincibility that has long shielded the nation’s most powerful political dynasty. Yet, to view this moment merely as a legal victory for the Marcos administration would be to misread the battlefield entirely. The warrant against the Vice President—arising from her televised admission that she had ordered a hitman to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the First Lady, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez—presents a paradoxical reality. It is simultaneously a landmark achievement for the rule of law and a stark revelation of how dangerously fractured the institutions of the Philippine state have become. We are not witnessing a uniform application of justice. We are witnessing a bifurcated ...

THE COLLAPSE OF THE DUTERTE DYNASTY: A CASE STUDY IN THE FAILURE OF LAWLESSNESS The images are almost surreal in their symmetry. In 2016, Rodrigo Duterte stood triumphant before adoring crowds, promising to kill so many criminals that "the fish in Manila Bay will grow fat." A decade later, the same man sits in a detention cell at The Hague, awaiting trial for crimes against humanity while his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, fights for her political life through an impeachment trial that has laid bare the rot at the core of their family's political machine. The Duterte dynasty, built on a foundation of blood, fear, and manufactured heroism, is collapsing under the weight of its own brutality—and the world is watching. The fall of the Dutertes is not merely a political story. It is a masterclass in the inevitable arc of unchecked power, the catastrophic consequences of abandoning due process, and the haunting truth that societies which celebrate vigilante...