19/05/2026
Dear Supreme Court:
Nice title, by the way. Supreme.
Not "Kind-of-OK Court." Not "Adequate Court." You're not the "Potentially Relevant Court." Supreme. Final. Highest. Where the country's hardest questions go to die.
Which is why this whole Bato situation is incredible.
Imagine spending decades becoming the highest judicial authority in the republic, then, during the country's biggest moral crisis, everybody starts looking overseas like, "Maybe the Dutch are smarter. The French."
That has to hurt.
Ces Drilon was quoting Boying yesterday: "The Philippines has no capacity to try it. That's why the families went to the Hague."
No capacity? What is this, an MRI machine? Do we need to import important batteries?
The Philippines has St. Luke's. Asian. Makati Med. World-class hospitals. Fantastic doctors. Beautiful lobbies. Smells expensive.
Yet, the moment the illness becomes serious, people start whispering: "Maybe we should go abroad."
Not because the doctors are fake. That's the painful part. The insult is: "Your institutions might actually be excellent, we just don't trust them with the hardest case."
Justices. we'd be furious. Supreme. But furious.
Would you allow this disrespect? You're the SC of a sovereign country founded by people who literally died resisting foreign power, and you're being treated like the barangay?
People are talking like the ICC, the ICJ, the Hague, whatever, will swoop in and save everyone. Where was this athleticism in the West Philippine Sea? The energy?
We literally watched the Hague ruling bounce off the Chinese Navy!
Very educational moment for the nation. We discovered there's a difference between having "rights", OK? And having power.
The ICC is saying they have jurisdiction because these killings happened back when the Philippines was still part. Technically. In the wee hours of President Duterte. The ICC has that window.
But we have withdrawn. We left the ICC. We said, "Nope, we're done. We don't answer to you anymore." So why are we still participating, enforcing, sending the NBI?
A former president is never truly vulnerable internationally until the people at home decide he's vulnerable. That's the game.
No endorsement. No muscle. Can't touch Bato. Try it. Not happening if Bongbong says no.
The real danger? Filipino politicians realizing they can outsource vengeance. Today Bongbong uses the Hague. Tomorrow? Someone else with an axe to grind, a grudge, a vendetta. Very unstable system. Very toxic republic.
If we vote for our leaders, if we pay taxes, if we salute the flag, if we call ourselves a sovereign republic, then we can look Duterte and Bato in the eye and say, "You failed us."
Otherwise what are we even saying? That Filipinos are mature enough to elect presidents, but not mature enough to judge them?
That we can build skyscrapers, casinos, luxury condos, giant malls, print our own tender, somehow we cannot build a justice system capable of handling our own strongest political families?
Don't tell us what justice looks like when you can't even say the man's name right.
"Duterth."
Come on.
That's the discomfort people are reacting to. The distance. Not whether justice is happening. But whether we can recognize ourselves in the justice being done in our name. | Vernon Velasco
