In Rodrigo Duterte’s showdown with members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday, November 13, the former president swaggered into the lion’s den armed with threats, daredevil bravado, and a defense team that failed him spectacularly. Duterte’s attempt to out-bully his opponents left him stripped of his mystique and, more dangerously for him, on record.

The House’s quad committee’s decision to push forward with the hearing revealed the limits of Duterte’s intimidation tactics. His tough-guy act didn’t work this time. The congressmen sat there, sipping their coffee, with a look that yelled: “Okay, big old guy, show us what you’ve got!”

He stormed in, thinking he was going to bully everyone. But this wasn’t the schoolyard. This was Congress! These people know how to insult someone’s intelligence while smiling right at them. And the best part? They merely used the gold standard for parliamentary procedures — the good ol’ Robert’s Rules of Order — which was enough to have him scrambling for a rulebook.

Back in the 1870s, Henry Martyn Robert, a US Army general, authored what is now the standard manual on parliamentary procedures after he presided over a chaotic church meeting, which showed him the need for universal rules of orderly debate. His manual aimed to keep discussions fair and structured, giving everyone a voice without letting things devolve into shouting matches.

Legislative aikido

Fast forward to Wednesday’s hearing, Duterte strutted into Congress expecting to bulldoze his critics, evidently ignorant of parliamentary procedures — otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked the chairman, Surigao del Norte Representative Ace Barbers, to provide him with copies of the rules.

Clearly, Barbers and the quad committee members had a solid grasp of the basics of these rules of order — the ultimate equalizer. The meeting, governed by rules, was not about “who’s the loudest” but “who has the floor,” proving that even the most blustering leaders can’t overpower a process built for order and reason.

There, Duterte wasn’t surrounded by lackeys or sycophants, but by lawmakers — and his victims — who were just as prepared, if not more so, to get in the mud. As it turned out, they called his bluff with a masterstroke of legislative aikido, and every move Duterte made to tighten his grip on the narrative slipped out of his hands like sand.

Duterte’s war with the congressmen, if one can call it that, was an artless and crude spectacle that would have made even Sun Tzu fall from his seat in disbelief. His camp telegraphed their punches a full day before the showdown, allowing the congressmen — no strangers to the art of ambush — to set the trap. 

The congressmen didn’t need to resort to brawn. They played the game with the precision of aikido, that elegant Japanese martial art that teaches practitioners to turn their opponent’s own energy against them — a far cry from the blustering brute force Duterte’s fans imagined he would carry out that day.

Duterte’s counsel, Salvador Panelo, had been insisting as early as the day before the hearing that his principal would show up, saying his appearance was all about courage and transparency — a moment for the ex-president to put his foot down and stand tall before the quad committee. 

They thought the hearing had been called off. It had been canceled, actually, until the last-minute taunting and provocation from the Duterte camp. The congressmen called the bluff, putting Duterte in a classic me-and-my-big-mouth situation.

As the hours wore on, one could only wonder: Was this a case of Panelo giving his principal bum advice, or a betrayal cloaked in bravado? 

Cognitive dissonance

There, in the nation’s most publicized spotlight, Duterte unwittingly handed his detractors plenty of ammunition to wound his reputation. They knew that the best way to unmask a bully was to let him talk subject to the old and trustworthy Robert’s rules which, apparently, Duterte was clueless about.

Lawmakers like House human rights committee chair Benny Abante of the 6th District of Manila set the tone early, cautioning Duterte against the foul language that has long been his rhetorical trademark. He made it very clear at the start that they would be respectful but not deferential, immediately drawing a line between them. 

Abante did not hold back, questioning whether the thousands of lives lost in Duterte’s drug war were the only path to curb criminality — a chilling reminder of the bloodstained policies Duterte once championed with disturbing pride.

Duterte’s attempts to sidestep responsibility fell flat before House members like Batangas Representative Gerville Luistro, who cornered him on his accountability for extrajudicial killings. Every time he tried to pivot, they pulled him back, his own words tangled in a web he couldn’t escape. 

Other congressmen like Representative Raoul Manuel of Kabataan partylist questioned him about police rewards. Duterte fumbled, unwilling or unable to clarify the source of funds, refusing to confirm if the millions spent incentivizing killings came from the Office of the President’s coffers.

Duterte’s reliance on an endless loop of machismo and deflection reached almost comedic proportions when he claimed he’d willingly face an International Criminal Court (ICC) trial in The Hague, handcuffed if need be. 

He said something like the jail there is nice, comfortable, and he’d rather die there. Hours later, he backtracked, insisting the ICC had no jurisdiction over him. The cognitive dissonance was almost palpable, as if he could speak reality into being through sheer force of personality. Meanwhile, the ICC is probably thinking, “No rush, Digong. We’re on our way.”

He was full of contradictions — or perhaps he was just being himself — but he was careful, most of the time, not to go into details, knowing full well that his horned cousin was lurking in them.

All bark

Former senators Leila de Lima and Antonio Trillanes IV, longtime thorns in Duterte’s side, each seized the opportunity to dismantle Duterte’s carefully constructed façade. 

De Lima, recently acquitted and freed after years in prison on what were widely regarded as politically-motivated charges, rejected his baseless slander with a newfound freedom. 

Trillanes, meanwhile, zeroed in on the alleged flow of drug money into what he called the “Duterte Crime Family” accounts, prompting a fit of rage that visibly shook the once-unflappable Duterte.

When Deputy Speaker Jay-Jay Suarez challenged Duterte to sign a bank secrecy waiver, Duterte blustered, “Anong kapalit, sampalin ko siya? (What’s in it for me, slap him?),” referring to Trillanes.

There goes Duterte, yelling, “Lôlô! (jackass or jerk).” He was throwing tantrums, making threats on live TV. He was holding a mic, gripping it like it was a grenade, just waiting to toss it at Trillanes. And he’s all puffed up, muttering, like that’s going to scare anyone over the age of five.

The former president of the Republic of the Philippines, reduced to playground insults and behaving like he’s about to start a bar fight… in Congress! “Lôlô?” Really? 

It wasn’t a challenge met with fear; it was a bluster that landed in a room filled with people who saw right through it, streamed live for all the world to see. That was when everyone knew the macho act was running on fumes, and that all Duterte had was the bluster of a toughie, but none of the bite — just an old man holding a mic he has no idea how to use, throwing around words.

Ultimately, Duterte’s theatrics only served to cement what many have suspected: when it comes to real accountability, he is all bark. His gruff demeanor, once enough to send chills through his critics, now revealed him as something different — a man out of touch, and, for the first time, vulnerable on his own terms.

Poetic justice

He spent years playing the strongman, and now he’s in a room full of people who are sick of his act, and they’re not buying it anymore. Everyone saw a lion who just found out he’s been declawed. You almost feel sorry for him… almost.

So, what did we learn? Rodrigo Duterte might look like a thug and talk like a thug, but when he finally had to answer for it and was pressed for details, he turned out to be just another scared old man — one who may have wet his pants or adult diapers and who didn’t realize the world had moved on. And that, my friends, is poetic justice.

I’m beginning to really wonder how he became a lawyer. Seriously. Duterte’s performance was so bad, it practically screamed, “Please, for the love of God, don’t hire me!” A former prosecutor? Well, this is one lawyer you wouldn’t trust to defend you in a traffic ticket case — unless you wanted to get a life sentence over a broken tail light. Pastilan. – Rappler.com