DILG won’t punish Sara Duterte over punching case

Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo on Friday said he would not be recommending sanctions against Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte whose public beating of a court sheriff was caught by television cameras and beamed nationwide.

Since no formal complaint has been filed against Duterte, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), which has jurisdiction over local officials, cannot mete out punishment to the mayor, Robredo said.

“Our process is there should be a case filed with the OP (Office of the President) so it can be treated as a complaint. That’s the only time we can impose sanctions,” Robredo explained.

“There was no such [complaint], so we will just complete our recommendations,” he said.

Because there is no complainant, “in that sense we cannot punish her,” he said.

Last July 2, Duterte was captured by television cameras punching Sheriff Abe Andres repeatedly on the face and back. The mayor was reportedly enraged because Andres had gone ahead and carried out a demolition order against a squatter community in the Agdao district despite her request for a two-hour deferment.

Andres did not file charges and instead apologized to the mayor.

But the Sheriffs Confederation of the Philippines has taken up the cudgels for Andres, filing a complaint of direct assault and grave misconduct against Duterte with the Office of the Ombudsman.

Duterte, who is a lawyer, also faces disciplinary action from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) which is now conducting its own investigation.

According to Robredo, the recommendations that he will be submitting to Malacañang would not just touch on the Duterte case but would be a general guideline on how local government officials should conduct themselves in similar situations.

Robredo told reporters the DILG fact-finding team that went to Davao City to investigate the incident has finished its report, but that he had sent the report back to the legal department because of some missing details.

He said the recommendations would be submitted either on Monday or Tuesday to Malacañang which will ultimately decide Duterte’s fate.

Duterte, who went on a voluntary five-day leave after the beating, on Friday said she could not comment until she receives a copy of the DILG report.

“We’ll just wait for the final copy because I know that as a respondent they will surely give me one. Without the final copy, I cannot comment because I don’t know what’s the content,” she said in a phone interview.

Duterte claimed that the DILG team that was sent to Davao City was not an investigation, but “just a fact-finding,” team.

“I know it [is so] because I asked the two lawyers [from the team] what they were doing and they said it was a fact-finding [mission],” she said.

The mayor said she only “entertained” the fact-finding team out of respect for Robredo. She said her lawyers had advised her not to do so.

Duterte said she was ready “if the DILG will conduct an investigation.”

All she needed was a summons and she would cooperate with an investigation, she said.

Duterte’s action has drawn contrasting reactions, with some saying it was abuse of power and others praising her for defending the poor.  With Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao