MANILA, Philippines — On Tuesday, Vice President Sara Duterte filed a petition with the Supreme Court seeking to annul her impeachment and prevent a Senate trial that could potentially lead to her removal from office.
Duterte’s impeachment was initiated in the House of Representatives on February 5, with accusations ranging from conspiring to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to engaging in extensive corruption. The Senate is anticipated to convene as an impeachment court when Congress reconvenes on June 2 to handle the trial.
In her plea to the 15-member Supreme Court, Duterte’s legal team argued that the impeachment proceedings had significant flaws, claiming they were “procedurally defective, constitutionally infirm, and jurisdictionally void.” Lawyer Israelito Torreon expressed to the media that the impeachment complaint had been rushed through, limiting the time for several House members involved to fully review it.
Torreon suggested that the impeachment efforts were politically motivated, likely aimed at undermining Duterte’s potential candidacy in the upcoming 2028 presidential elections. He characterized the impeachment as a blatant act of political harassment.
If the Senate were to convict Duterte, she would be permanently barred from holding any public office. The impeachment accusations stemmed from statements made by Duterte during a November 23 online press conference where she hinted at the assassination of the president, his spouse, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez if her life was taken amid their ongoing political rivalry. Duterte has denied that her words were a literal threat to their lives.
Additionally, she faces allegations of improperly utilizing intelligence funds as both vice president and previously as education secretary, a position she resigned from as her relations with the president soured last year. Despite these serious claims of graft and corruption, she has not yet publicly addressed them in detail.
Duterte, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, was elected as Marcos’ vice president in the 2022 elections, but their partnership deteriorated soon after. During her campaign for senatorial candidates in the midterm elections held on May 12, Marcos has been vocally critical of his predecessor’s violent anti-drug policies and failure to confront China’s aggressive posture towards Philippine forces in the contested South China Sea, alluding to the Duterte family without explicitly naming them.
In a related political incident last week, Rodrigo Duterte suggested at a campaign rally that 15 senators should be killed to create more positions for his allies in the midterm elections. In response, the police filed criminal complaints against him on Monday regarding those controversial remarks.
