FIRING LINE: Sara’s soc-med performance

FIRING LINE: Sara’s soc-med performance

By Robert B. Roque Jr | September 8, 2026

The feisty Vice President walked into the Quezon City Hall of Justice last Saturday like a woman auditioning for a lead role, and by the time she walked out, she’d delivered a full three-act performance. It came complete with a trembling monologue, a weeping fan for a curtain call, and not a single moment of actual danger to justify any of it.

Let’s be clear about what this case is: three counts of grave threats, filed because VP Sara Duterte announced on live video, in her own words, that she’d arranged for someone to “kill BBM, Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez” if anything ever happened to her. No joke, she said. No joke. We all watched it in 2024. It wasn’t a leak or a rumor. It was all her in front of a camera, livestreaming her message of disdain against the President, the First Lady, and the then-House Speaker.

Nearly two years later, while she is being tried by the impeachment court, Inday Sara is summoned to answer for precisely that. And what does she do? Well, she uses the rolling cameras and Smartphone videocams, yet again, for some role-playing.

She was close to scolding her own lawyers on camera, insisting she wanted an audience, asking who would answer for “her death later that night.” Was she tripping? Because nothing in that scene was actually threatening her life.

She wasn’t sentenced. She wasn’t denied due process. Judge Maria Angelica P. De Ramos, the same judge who, months earlier, had voluntarily disclosed her sorority ties to Duterte rather than hide them, granted her bail without a fight. So, that’s far from the persecution Sara was talking about. That’s the system working exactly the way it’s supposed to.

Then came the weeping supporter on the courthouse steps, right on cue, right as the cameras swung outside. All she had to do was post ₱360,000 and get in her car. Instead, she gave us a finale. Somebody hand this woman an overacting award — and maybe a mirror.

Alex Eala stays classy

Alexandra Eala gave the Philippines a US tennis season to be proud of — a Washington title and a US Open run that ended in a match already being talked about as a contender for match of the season.

But I do take exception to the presser that came a day before her US Open exit, where a Pinoy reporter used his turn to ask about court-scheduling “controversy” instead of the tennis history unfolding in front of him.

Eala didn’t even recognize the drama at first, which seems to be spreading more on social media pages that are heavily AI-produced. But she responded with such class, simply stating she doesn’t control scheduling and assignment of the court where she gets to play.

The backlash the reporter got online was earned; we’ve done this before, dragging a Filipino athlete’s personal life into their biggest moment: Remember when Carlos Yulo won his Olympic golds? The next time Alex steps into the tennis spotlight, let’s afford her a better story to write about.

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