CHICKENPIE.The Vice President of the Philippines was, for about eighteen hours, a wanted woman. A Quezon City court issued the warrant on a Friday. She posted bail on a Saturday. By Monday the group chats had already moved on to something else.
Let's be clear about what happened, because the headline undersells it. In 2024, the sitting VP said — on camera, at a press conference, like she was reading the weather — that she'd arranged to have the President, the First Lady, and the Speaker killed if anything happened to her. That's not a diss track. That's three counts of grave threats. The court finally caught up two years later, slapped a warrant on her, and set bail at P120,000 a head.
Three lives. P360,000 total. P120,000 per assassination threat, which, depending on your barangay, is roughly the going rate for a decent secondhand Honda.
Here's the part that should bother you more than the threat did. The warrant went up Friday. It came down Saturday. The whole cycle — crime, warrant, bail, freedom — moved faster than a DTI complaint about a defective blender. We built an entire justice system, and for the country's second-highest official it functions like a weekend court is a courtesy, not a consequence.
Everyone's calling this a political circus. It isn't. Circuses have consequences for the tightrope walker. This was a toll booth. You say the unspeakable thing, you pay the toll, you drive through.
We've done this dance before — a Senate trial that dragged into its third week while senators visibly aged in real time, a peso that hit a record low and got a shrug instead of a headline. The country's stopped being shocked. Shock takes energy, and we spent ours in 2024. What's left is arithmetic. What does it cost. Who pays it. How fast can you leave.
Somewhere in Quezon City this weekend, a court clerk stamped a release order for a woman who threatened three assassinations, and then probably went home and made dinner, because it was Saturday and there was nothing left to be alarmed about.
That's not corruption. Corruption at least has the decency to hide. This was administrative. This was routine. This was a fee schedule with a national flag on it.
The chicken was not surprised. The chicken has seen this menu before.
