Vice President Sara Duterte speaking at a Manila press conference on February 7, 2025 Basilio Sepe, AP Photo
On February 5, the Philippine House of Representatives voted to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte. The vote was raised over complaints of alleged corruption involving the misuse of public funds and failure to declare wealth as required by law, alongside plotting the assassination of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos. At a news conference on November 23, the Vice President claimed she contracted an assassin to kill Marcos, his wife, and the Speaker of the House Martin Romualdez. Later, she contended the comment was not a threat, instead an expression of worry for her own safety. Concerns regarding the VP’s lack of assertiveness towards China, citing her failure to denounce Xi Jinping’s behavior challenging Philippine presence in the South China Seas, added to those raised in the vote. Duterte has denied all accusations.
Exceeding the one-third minimum for an impeachment, with 215 of the 306 members in favor, the vote will proceed to the Senate. The impeachment claim is set to be addressed in June, when Congress resumes following the May midterm elections. Given that 12 of the 24 Senate seats are up for re-election, and 16 votes are needed to convict, the midterms are imperative in deciding the outcome of the impeachment trial.
If convicted, Duterte would be ousted from her current position and barred from future entry into public office, squandering tentative plans for presidential candidacy in the 2028 election. The impeachment, if passed, would mark the first of a Vice President in the Philippines. In this instance, Marcos would nominate a member of Congress as a successor. The newly-appointed senators are among the potential candidates.
The impeachment case is the latest manifestation of the feud between Marcos and Duterte. Since landslide victories in 2022, the “UniTeam” has experienced rifts over diverging anti-drug agendas and foreign policy. Duterte’s absence of defiance against China’s aggression in the SCS has created tension with Marcos’s continued efforts to strengthen U.S.-Philippine relations. With speculation swirling around the VP’s intentions to run for President following Marcos’s term, the impeachment trial holds the potential to not only shape the outcome of the 2028 presidential elections but the direction of the country’s relationships with the U.S. and China.
The House decision comes amid an ongoing International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the mass extrajudicial killings that occurred under the “War on Drugs” launched in 2016 by the VP’s father and former President, Rodrigo Duterte. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that over 8,000 people have been killed under the banner of the campaign. On the claim that the case violates principles of non-intervention and sovereignty, Rodrigo Duterte issued the withdrawal of Philippine membership from the ICC’s Rome Statute. The Philippines officially withdrew in March 2019, making it the second to rescind membership following Burundi in 2017. Retaining the assertion that the case threatens sovereignty, Marcos stated that “the Philippine government will not lift a finger to help any investigation that the ICC conducts.” Given the lack of cooperation exhibited by the government and the court’s means of enforcement, the violence is likely to persist as the campaign, though toned down, carries on. Human rights groups are concerned that the VP may intensify the campaign, if given the opportunity. The impeachment trial, granting or denying Duterte’s ability to maintain and run for office, may be critical in determining how the crisis unfolds.