DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 18 June) – The first time Sara Zimmerman Duterte heard her father, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, declare “I’m proud of you” was 11 years ago, on July 3, 2011, when she was 33 and on her first term as Davao City mayor.
“All these years – I am now 33 – it was the first time he said that. I graduated with honors in the elementary, from Grade 1 to Grade 6. I was either first or second honor. And I graduated with full scholarship. I finished high school, college, law school, I became a lawyer. Never. He never said, ‘Congratulations, I’m very proud of you, anak.’ Pero manumbag ka ug tao, ‘I’m proud of you’ (But you punch somebody and he says ‘I’m proud of you.’), Sara recalled in a sit-down interview with MindaNews a month after she made the headlines for punching a sheriff on July 1, 2011.
Two days later, Duterte. who graced the cover of Time Magazine in 2002 as “The Punisher” but who had repeatedly said that there was only one person he was afraid of — his daughter Sara — announced in his weekly TV program that he was proud of her.
“You were elected by the people to defend them. You were just doing your job,” he said of his daughter, who had by then been dubbed “The Puncher.”
Citing humanitarian reasons, Sara had requested a two-hour extension, or until 11a.m., so that she could still dialogue with the residents before the demolition order would be enforced.
Before proceeding to the demolition site, the mayor was attending to victims of the June 28-29 flash floods that killed at least 30 persons, most of them children.
At that time, too, her eldest child, Sharky, then a toddler, was confined in a hospital.
Sara clarified that she did not order a stop to the demolition that would affect 220 families occupying the 2,000 square meter lot in Soliman, Agdao. She said she only wanted to have it enforced peacefully.
It was a riot that she faced when she reached Soliman.
When she heard people from both sides say it was the sheriff, she asked for him. “When I saw him, that’s it,” Sara said.
When she had him summoned, did she think she would hit him?
“No. No. At that time, I was really angry and frustrated. Frustration because for all those planning that we did to make the demolition peaceful, it wasn’t followed. In my anger, what’s two hours for us to do this demolition? Anyway, we will help you,” she said.
“Ulaw gyud kaayo”
From Soliman, she proceeded to the hospital where her daughter Sharky was confined. Sharky asked if she punched someone. She denied. But her daughter said she saw her on TV.
“Ana gani si Sharky, ‘Ma, nanumbag ka?’ Ana ko ‘wala ko nanumbag uy!’ Ana siya ‘kato gani sa TV nanumbag ka.’ (Sharky said, ‘ma, you punched someone? I said no! She said, ‘I saw you on TV.’)
A month after that punching incident, Sara would say what she did was something she could not be proud of, that she was “naulaw. Ulaw gyud kaayo” (ashamed. I was really ashamed).
“Imagine, kinsa ba gyud ang dili gusto musikat like Jennifer Lopez, ana, worldwide, global. Pero to be known gani globally for something na ing ana. Ulaw. Ulaw uy! … And number two kana, di nimo ma explain sa mga bata, na di ka makasulti sa ilaha na it’s correct. (Imagine. Who does not want to be famous like Jennifer Lopez, worldwide, global. But to be known globally for something like that. Shameful. Really shameful … And number two, you cannot explain to the kids. You cannot tell them it’s correct)
“You cannot be happy because, you cannot be proud about it because the kids might say that is the right thing to do,” she said.
“You can hear children now saying, ‘I will have you punched by Inday Sara.’ Actually, some parents told me and I do not like it. It is not correct for them to grow up thinking that is right. You cannot be proud about it,” she stressed.
From med school to law school
Sara was nine years old when her father, Rodrigo, was appointed OIC Vice Mayor in 1986.
In that 2011 interview, she recalled having joined him in some of his sorties. “In fact, when I enter a barangay now, some people would show me pictures of those visits.”
Sara said she never imagined she would one day be mayor of Davao City, the youngest and first woman to occupy the post.
She wanted to be a doctor, took up respiratory therapy at the San Pedro College in Davao City and went to Manila for med school. How she ended up a lawyer, she charged to fate.
“Since I was in senior kindergarten, even in my yearbook, I had already said I really wanted to be a pediatrician,” Sara said in her inaugural address as mayor in 2010.
“Even in college, I still wanted to be a doctor. I was influenced by the series, ER. I wanted to be an ER doctor,” she said.
What changed all that? She flunked med school.
“I was in med school for one year. I was afraid to come home because number one, I flunked, number two, I was ashamed to come home … I already knew I wouldn’t succeed in med school after one sem. In January that second sem, I applied for law school” at San Beda, without telling her father, a graduate of the San Beda College of Law.
Sara enrolled in San Beda because “they said there are only three law schools in the country. Ateneo, University of the Philippines and San Beda.”
According to Sara, Ateneo Law at that time was already closed for applications, UP was too far away from where she lived in San Juan while San Beda was near and was still open.
When she flunked med school, Sara entered law school.
“I did not want to come home. And for Mayor Rody (Duterte), for him, I can always remember this, (he would often say) ‘you are not successful kung dili ka doctor or lawyer.’”
“The pressure on me to return home without finishing med school was huge. With all their hopes, I was embarrassed to face my parents and my brothers so I did not want to come home,” she said.
“Those were the years when we really had time to talk”
Sara went to the United States with her mother and youngest brother Sebastian. “At that time, I thought of not coming home anymore since I was a respiratory therapist anyway, I could probably practice my profession there. But in our telephone conversation, Mayor Rody (Duterte) said, “Ipa deport tika dinha. Pauli diri” (I’ll have you deported. Come home).
“I said, okay I will return to the Philipines but I’ll be late for the enrolment in San Beda law school. He said he knew because the driver told him I was frequenting San Beda. So he worked on my late enrolment. I entered classes in mid-June,” and eventually learned to love law school.
“For me, it was easier compared with med school. Although, tungod lagi anang pagka maulawon man gud ko, super maulawon, maglisod ko sa recitation (because I am shy, I am super shy, I had difficulties during recitation). But this time, because there was no pressure to stand up in front of the crowd, it was easy for me,” said Sara who shared then that she had stage fright.
“It may not show but my husband knows my knees tremble. He says it doesn’t show,” Sara added.
She entered law school when her father was based in Metro Manila for his congressional duties as representative of Davao City’s first district.
“That was when we somehow became close because we’d see each other at home: 1998 to 2001. Just the two of us at home. So he’d come home bringing take-out food and we’d eat. Those were the years when we really had time to talk,” she said.
Duterte was congressman from 1998 to 2001. He ran for mayor in 2001 and served another three terms.
Sara ran for vice mayor in 2007 and mayor in 2010, 2016 and 2019. She received the highest number of votes among national candidates in the 2022 elections — 32.2 million, nearly twice the number of votes cast for her father in 2016.
Duterte has not publicly congratulated his daughter Sara but he has confirmed attendance to her oath-taking on Sunday as the country’s 15th Vice President.
Sunday, which also happens to be Father’s Day, will be the first time in months that Duterte and daughter Sara will be seen in public together.
Sara had left for Manila when Duterte arrived at the miting de avance here of then mayoralty candidate Sebastian Duterte on May 6. (Carolyn O. Arguillas / MindaNews)