The Philippine House of Representatives has voted to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, paving the way for a Senate trial that could see her removed from office.
In yesterday’s vote, 215 of the House’s 306 members backed the resolution that set forth the articles of impeachment. “Having been filed by more than one-third of the membership of the House of Representatives, or a total of 215 members … the motion is approved,” House Speaker Martin Romualdez told lawmakers.
The House resolution charges Duterte with “violation of the constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.” While the specific charges have not been disclosed, the vote follows the filing of three impeachment complaints against Duterte in December, accusing her of a range of crimes, including her misuse of millions of dollars in public funds, alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings in Davao, where she previously served as mayor, and an alleged plot to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos.
Duterte is one of only four high-ranking officials, including former President Joseph Estrada, to face an impeachment vote since 1986.
All of the accusations against Duterte stem from the increasingly bitter political feud between the Duterte and Marcos clans. The two families formed a formidable partnership ahead of the presidential election of 2022, and Duterte and Marcos won their respective elections in a landslide. But the partnership between the two power centers has since deteriorated, due to a toxic combination of personal and political differences. In June of last year, Duterte resigned from Marcos’s cabinet (she had served as education secretary, saying that she felt “used” by the president and his allies. Meanwhile, her 79-year-old father, Marcos’s predecessor as president, has lobbed rhetorical salvoes at the Marcos administration.
Since leaving the cabinet, Duterte has become the subject of a House investigation into her alleged misuse of more than 612.5 million pesos ($10.5 million) of confidential and intelligence funds. The feud reached a crescendo in November, when Duterte took part in a fiery livestream in which she claimed that she had contracted someone to kill Marcos, along with his wife and Romualdez, in the event of her own assassination. The outburst followed the brief detention of her chief of staff, who was accused of hampering an ongoing congressional inquiry into Duterte’s alleged misuse of funds.
The fate of Duterte now lies in the hands of the Philippines’ 24 senators, two-thirds of whom must vote for her impeachment to remove her from office, a verdict that would also disqualify her from standing for any public positions in future.
The date of the trial date has yet to be determined, but is subject to a host of complex considerations. According to its rules, once the Senate begins to deliberate on articles of impeachment, it must “continue in session from day to day (except Saturdays, Sundays, and nonworking holidays) until final judgment shall be rendered, and so much longer as may, in its judgment, be necessary.”
However, as Rappler explains, the Senate has just gone on a months-long break, and will not reconvene until June 2 – after the midterm elections that are scheduled for May 12.
Senate President Chiz Escudero has previously announced that his chamber can convene for the impeachment trial during the break if it so chooses. With the official campaign period for the mid-terms beginning later this week, and half of the Senate up for election, including six sitting senators who are seeking re-election, the question of whether to hold the Senate trial before or after the polls could have a significant impact on its outcome – and potentially also on the outcome of the Senate contests.
If the trial is held before the election, Rappler noted that those Senators facing reelection will need to strike “a careful balancing act between keeping the pro-Marcos base happy, and not upsetting the pro-Duterte base.” (Senators in the Philippines are all elected “at-large” – i.e., on a national level – rather than from particular constituencies.) If the trial is held after the mid-terms, the impeachment could well become a defining issue in the Senate campaigns. Two of the senators up for reelection, Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Tesoro Go, are close allies of the Dutertes.
Either way, as Inquirer columnist and political analyst Manuel Quezon III wrote yesterday on X, the midterms are shaping as both a “plebiscite” on the Marcos administration and on the House’s decision to impeach Duterte, with potential implications for the 2028 presidential contest.
Another important variable is whether Marcos throws his support behind the impeachment of his former ally. The Philippine leader has said previously that he does not favor Duterte’s impeachment, and this week Marcos’s executive secretary, Lucas Bersamin, said that his office would “not interfere” with any process of impeachment.
Dennis Coronacion of the University of Santo Tomas told AFP that if Marcos was “committed” to seeing Duterte impeached, getting the 16 votes necessary was “possible.” But if Marcos decides to remain aloof from the process, the chances of Duterte being impeached are closer to 50 percent, he said.