Satire: The Invictus to Convictus Pipeline

 

The second day of Vice President Sara Duterte’s historic impeachment trial didn’t start with legal evidence, but with a dramatic poetry recital.

Stepping into the Senate building, the Vice President looked at the waiting reporters and dropped a line so majestic, it could only have been influenced by a Victorian-era :

"In this bloodbath and bludgeoning, I will be bloodied but unbowed."

It was a beautiful, soaring tribute to resilience—stolen word-for-word from William Ernest Henley’s famous 1875 poem, Invictus.

Naturally, the internet immediately lost its mind, sending alert netizens into a frenzy of literary auditing.

Netizens were quick to point out the ultimate irony of the situation.

The Vice President is currently on trial for allegedly misallocating and failing to account for hundreds of millions of pesos in public funds. And yet, here she is, unable to even generate her own metaphors.

The internet quickly established a new theory of political habits:

[Level 1] Can't account for ₱125 million ➔ "Secret Funds"

[Level 2] Can't generate a 10-word statement ➔ Plagiarize Victorian poetry

As one netizen brilliantly observed: “If you have a natural tendency to borrow 19th-century poems without giving credit, is it really a surprise that you treat the national budget the same way?”

Another netizen continued: "It’s a major red flag. If you can't respect intellectual property, how can we expect you to respect the Bureau of the Treasury?"

But what truly captivated the public wasn't just the plagiarism—it was the absolute delivery. Anyone who has watched her recent unscripted interviews knows that her usual vocabulary leans heavily toward conversational street fighting and casual pagbardagulan.

Suddenly, introducing words like "bludgeoning" and "unbowed" felt less like an authentic emotional statement and more like a high schooler reading vocabulary flashcards for the SATs.

-Sara's Usual Vocabulary - "Gusto ko ng bloodbath."

-The Invictus Rebrand - "I will be bloodied but unbowed amidst the bludgeoning."

-The Reality - A massive tongue twister that she barely got through without stuttering.

The consensus from the comment section was brutal: the moment she used those high-falutin words, all sincerity completely evaporated. "Nawala ang diwa at sincerity ang sinasabi mo ... kung kinopya lang naman ang source nito,"

It was clear she didn't write it, and based on the choppy delivery, it’s highly debatable if she even understood what "bludgeoning" meant before her PR team handed her the index card.

The absolute peak of the satire, however, was her immediate exit.

Right after delivering her magnificent, defiant line about standing strong against the storm, Sara Duterte promptly turned around, skipped the actual trial proceedings, and left the Senate building to let her lawyers handle the messy part.

As House impeachment prosecutor Terry Ridon perfectly countered: “You cannot have a bloodbath from the sidelines... instead of Invictus, you need to prepare for Convictus.”

It turns out, you can be the master of your fate and the captain of your soul all you want—but if you don't show up to court to explain where the ₱125 million went, the poetry isn't going to save you from the verdict.