Thea Tan@imtheatan
The Supreme Court handed down a one-year suspension to Atty. @jesusfalcis.
His offense? A 2018 tweet where he fiercely defended his brother by using vulgar language (“Paky* kayo mga g*ga”!).
The High Court ruled it as simple misconduct and declared that the Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability (CPRA) strictly mandates lawyers to maintain dignified language, even on personal social media accounts.
Okay, if the baseline for "dignity of the profession" is THAT strict, how on earth is Vice President Sara Duterte, who is also a lawyer, still holding onto her law license?
If we are talking about actual violations, her verbatim, public receipts are entirely unhinged.
Let us enumerate some:
1. Sara Duterte didn't just casually throw bad words around.
In her streamed press briefings, she completely abandoned any shred of professional decorum and screamed on live broadcast:
“P*tang ina mo BBM! P*tang ina mo Liza! P*tang ina mo Martin! P*tang ina ninyong lahat!”
“Binastos pa nila sa pagsisinungaling nila na kesyo taksil, kesyo corrupt, abusado. P*tang ina ninyo, sino ang corrupt?”
2. Let's NEVER forget when she was a city mayor and an active member of the bar.
Instead of upholding the law, she literally used a court sheriff as a human punching bag!
She grabbed him and repeatedly punched him in the face and head on camera just for executing a lawful court order.
Kagalang-galang yarn?
3. She openly admitted on live television to hiring an assassin to target the country's top leaders if a supposed plot against her succeeded:
“I’ve talked to a person. I said, if I get killed, don’t stop until you k*ll BBM, Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke."
4. She casually bragged during a press conference about threatening to desecrate a former president's remains:
“Isang beses, sinabihan ko talaga si Sen. Imee. Sabi ko sa kanya, kung hindi kayo tumigil, huhukayin ko 'yang tatay ninyo, itatapon ko siya sa West Philippine Sea!”
5. She publicly detailed her thoughts of extreme physical violence against the sitting president:
“I wanted to remove his head. I realized the relationship was already toxic... [I] just imagine myself cutting his head."
An ordinary attorney gets a one-year suspension for typing profanities on Twitter to protect his sibling.
Meanwhile, a high-profile lawyer and the sitting Vice President can publicly brag about hitmen, look at a camera to detail cutting off the President's head, threaten to dig up a former president’s corpse, physically assault a court sheriff, and scream “p*tang ina ninyong lahat" on live broadcast with zero professional consequences!
Hello, IBP? Ano na?
The CPRA allows you to initiate disbarment proceedings motu proprio when a lawyer's misconduct is THIS flagrant and very public!
The rules apparently apply to everyone except her.
Time to strip her of that license!
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