Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte was impeached Wednesday on a range of accusations that include plotting to assassinate the president, large-scale corruption and failing to strongly denounce China’s aggressive actions against Filipino forces in the disputed South China Sea.
The move by legislators in the House of Representatives, many of them allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., deepens a bitter political rift that involved the two highest leaders of one of Asia’s most rambunctious democracies.
Marcos has boosted defense ties with his country’s treaty ally, the United States, while the vice president’s father, Rodrigo Duterte, nurtured cozy relations with China and Russia during his stormy term that ended in 2022.
Sara Duterte didn’t immediately comment on her impeachment, but her brother, Rep. Paolo Duterte, said it was “a clear act of political persecution.” Rival lawmakers maneuvered to quickly collect signatures and push a “baseless impeachment case” to the Senate, he said.
Duterte has repeatedly accused Marcos, his wife and his cousin, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, of corruption, weak leadership and attempting to muzzle her because of speculation she may seek the presidency in 2028 after Marcos’s six-year term ends.
At least 215 legislators in the lower house signed the complaint, significantly more than the required number to rapidly send the petition to the Senate, which would serve as a tribunal to try the vice president, House of Representatives Secretary-General Reginald Velasco told a plenary House meeting in the body’s last session before a four-month recess.
Among the signatories of the impeachment complaint was the president’s son, Rep. Sandro Marcos, and Romualdez. The petition urged the Senate to shift itself into an impeachment court to try the vice president, “render a judgement of conviction,” remove her from office and ban her from holding public office.
“Duterte’s conduct throughout her tenure clearly displays gross faithlessness against public trust and a tyrannical abuse of power that, taken together, showcases her gross unfitness to hold public office and her infidelity to the laws and the 1987 Constitution,” the complaint said.
Duterte ran alongside Marcos in 2022 on a campaign battle cry of unity in a deeply divided Southeast Asian country. Both were scions of strongmen accused of human rights violations, but their strong regional bases of support combined to give them landslide victories.
Marcos is the son and namesake of the late dictator ousted in a 1986 pro-democracy uprising. The vice president’s father and Marcos’s predecessor, Duterte, led a deadly anti-drug crackdown that is being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity.
The whirlwind political alliance of the campaign rapidly frayed after their electoral victories.
The impeachment complaint against the vice president focused on a death threat she made against the president, his wife and the House speaker last year, irregularities in the use of her office’s intelligence funds and her failure to stand up to Chinese aggression in the disputed South China Sea.
She said in an online news conference on November 23 that she had contracted an assassin to kill Marcos, his wife and Romualdez if she were killed, a threat she warned wasn’t a joke.
She later said that she wasn’t threatening him, but was expressing concern for her own safety. However, her statements set off an investigation and national security concerns.
Allegations of graft and corruption against her also emanated from a monthslong and televised House investigation on the alleged misuse of 612.5 million pesos ($10.5 million) of confidential and intelligence funds received by Duterte’s offices as vice president and education secretary. She has since left the education post after her political differences with Marcos deepened.
She has also been accused of unexplained wealth and failure to declare her wealth as required by the law. She has refused to respond to questions in detail in tense televised hearings last year.
The impeachment complaint accused Duterte of undermining the Marcos government’s policies, including her description of the administration’s handling of territorial disputes with Beijing in the South China Sea as a “fiasco.” The complaint also mentioned her silence over China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed waters.