Philippine V-P Duterte impeached for assassination threat against Marcos, alleged misuse of funds

MANILA – The Philippine House of Representatives impeached Vice-President Sara Duterte for threatening to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and for allegedly misusing public funds, in a last-minute move before Congress goes on a four-month break ahead of the May 12 midterm polls.

Ms Duterte is the Philippine’s first vice-president to be impeached after 215 lawmakers endorsed a fourth impeachment complaint against her.

Her impeachment on Feb 5 signals an even more intensified feud with her erstwhile ally, Mr Marcos, who counts a majority of the 306 House lawmakers as his allies. Speaker Martin Romualdez is the President’s cousin.

This could spell the end of her political career, some analysts say.

The impeachment vote came less than a week before the Feb 11 start of the official campaign period for the May elections, seen as a referendum on the Marcos presidency.

But Ms Duterte remains the vice-president for now, with the articles of impeachment having been transmitted to the Senate, which will turn itself into a court for the proceedings.

If 16 out of the 23 sitting senators agree to convict her for impeachable offences, she will be removed as vice-president.

Senators may also vote to throw out the impeachment instead, which means Ms Duterte will survive the ouster attempt.

The impeachment trial can run only until June 13, when the current 19th Congress adjourns. A new set of legislators will take office by end-June.

The Straits Times has reached out to Ms Duterte’s office for comment.

In a simple majority decision, a total of 215 out of 306 legislators voted to impeach Ms Duterte after she threatened in November 2024 to have the President, First Lady Louise Araneta-Marcos and the House Speaker assassinated should she end up dead as their political rivalry heated up.

Ms Duterte later said her remarks were taken out of context.

She was also impeached for alleged misuse of over 612.5 million pesos (S$14.3 million) worth of funds intended for sensitive and classified purposes.

The funds were disbursed in 2022 and 2023 to the Office of the Vice-President and Department of Education, which Ms Duterte headed until her resignation from the Marcos Cabinet in June 2024.

Legislators also impeached Ms Duterte for alleged bribery and financial manipulation in the education ministry, unexplained wealth, and involvement in the extrajudicial killings of drug suspects in Davao City, where she served as mayor from 2016 to 2022.

Ms Duterte was also accused of inciting insurrection and destabilisation in 2024 when she joined supporters’ protests calling for Mr Marcos’ resignation and for publicly defending controversial pastor Apollo Quiboloy, who is in jail for child sexual abuse and human trafficking charges.

Three impeachment cases against Ms Duterte were filed by various civil society groups in late 2024, but the House did not act on them for weeks.

Political analysts have said the delay was likely caused by Mr Marcos distancing himself from the impeachment efforts. Some 1.8 million members of influential Christian group Iglesia ni Cristo staged a rally on Jan 13 to protest against the Duterte ouster moves.

Administration-allied legislators filed a fourth impeachment case on Feb 5, just a few weeks after local pollster Social Weather Stations showed that 41 per cent of Filipinos backed Ms Duterte’s impeachment, with 35 per cent opposed and 19 per cent undecided.

Because more than one-third of its members endorsed the latest impeachment case, the House immediately moved to conduct the final vote on Feb 5. Normally, an impeachment complaint goes through the House Justice Committee, which assesses the articles of impeachment lodged against an official.

Since being elected as president and vice-president, respectively, in 2022, ties between Mr Marcos and Ms Duterte have soured.

In 2024, the House investigated Ms Duterte for the alleged misuse of funds. They also launched a probe into the bloody drug war waged by Ms Duterte’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, who faces a crimes-against-humanity investigation by the International Criminal Court for the thousands killed during his anti-drugs crackdown launched in 2016.

Tensions flared further in November when Ms Duterte threatened to have the President assassinated. The threat prompted Mr Marcos to launch multiple investigations against the Vice-President, who later said her remarks were a “plan without flesh”.

The push for impeachment shows intent to curtail Ms Duterte’s presidential ambitions and curb the Duterte family’s political influence, analysts say.

The Marcos faction still sees Ms Duterte as the candidate to beat in the 2028 presidential race, said ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute visiting senior fellow Aries Arugay.

Dr Arugay said Ms Duterte, who is aiming for the highest post in the country, could be barred from running for office again if she is convicted by the Senate for impeachable offences.

“I don’t think... the goal here is to just cut Sara Duterte’s term (as vice-president), since we’re halfway through her six years already. So the objective really is to prevent the inevitability of a Sara Duterte presidency in 2028,” said Dr Arugay.

House lawmakers would unlikely have been able to push forward with the impeachment if Mr Marcos did not approve it behind closed doors, said Dr Carmel Abao, chairwoman of the political science department at Ateneo de Manila University.

Mr Marcos has said publicly that he does not support Ms Duterte’s impeachment but that he has no power over the legislative branch.

His son, Ilocos Norte Representative Sandro Marcos, however, was the first to sign the impeachment vote on Feb 5.

“I don’t think Congress will ever go rogue as an election draws near,” Dr Abao said, adding that legislators tend to curry favour with the president to gain access to campaign funds ahead of polls.

But if Ms Duterte plays her cards right and wins sympathy votes, she might still emerge as the victor amid the impeachment proceedings, said political analyst Jean Encinas-Franco from the University of the Philippines.

Ms Duterte remains popular among Filipinos even though her trust and approval ratings have slipped since the investigations started, she noted.

“She can play the victim card and say that she’s just being attacked because she is planning to run for president,” said Dr Franco.

“The impeachment can backfire on her enemies and actually improve her chances of winning in the end.”