The Philippine House of Representatives votes to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte for the second time (Image source: AP)
An overwhelming majority of members of the Philippine House of Representatives on Monday voted to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte over charges of graft, corruption, bribery, misuse of state funds and an alleged threat to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., casting doubt on her candidacy in the 2028 presidential election.The House of Representatives, dominated by Marcos allies, voted 255 to 26, with nine abstentions, to send the impeachment complaints to the Senate, which will sit as a court to try them. A guilty verdict would remove Duterte from office and ban him from holding any elected office for life.The vice president, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, has generally denied any wrongdoing without addressing the criminal accusations in detail.
A Duterte ally was elected Senate president minutes before the vote
In an important development minutes before the House of Representatives voted, the Senate elected Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, a long-time ally of Vice President Duterte, as its new president. Cayetano, who served as foreign secretary under former President Rodrigo Duterte, replaced Vicente Sotto III after a vote of 13 to 9, with two abstentions.A change in Senate leadership could play a crucial role in the outcome of the impeachment trial.
Cayetano denied any connection between his election and the House vote.“I don’t blame you if you’re saying the change in leadership was due to impeachment. That was not the case,” he said immediately after the Senate vote.
What will happen next?
Among the most serious allegations in the complaint are private banking transactions reported by the Anti-Money Laundering Agency amounting to more than $110 million.“The extent of these transactions cannot be reasonably explained by the statutory income, declared assets, or business and professional activities attributable to the spouses,” Assemblyman Terry Ridon, one of the main complainants, said in a statement.The articles of impeachment also accuse Duterte of allegedly threatening to assassinate Marcos, his wife, Lisa Araneta, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.Under the Philippine Constitution, impeachment leads to a trial in the Senate, where a two-thirds majority is required to convict and remove her from office. A guilty verdict would also disqualify her from holding any government position.The House of Representatives had previously passed a motion to impeach Duterte in 2025 with 215 votes, but it was later invalidated by the Supreme Court due to constitutional aspects.Duterte and Marcos ran as a ticket in the 2022 elections, but their political alliance later collapsed, leading to a bitter split. Duterte has already announced her intention to run for president in 2028.On May 7, Duterte said that the outcome of the impeachment, whatever it may be, was “written by God.”“Based on our previous discussion with former President Duterte, everything that happens in a person’s life is written by God. So, if I am impeached, it is written by God. If I am not impeached, see you tomorrow,” she told supporters after visiting her father in The Hague, where he faces trial at the International Criminal Court over his “war on drugs.”
