Philippine lawmakers impeach presidential hopeful Sara Duterte

MANILA — Philippine lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly backed the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte for a second time, threatening her plan to run for president in 2028. Monday’s vote moves the impeachment process to the Senate for trial, where if convicted, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte will be disqualified from holding public office. The 47-year-old is leading early surveys to replace her ally-turned-bitter foe, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.The case against the vice president stemmed from her alleged misuse of public funds and public threats against Marcos, his wife and his cousin, the former House speaker. Duterte was impeached on the same grounds in 2025, but the Supreme Court blocked it on a technicality before the Senate trial could start. The case was revived this year. Last week, a House committee that looked into the evidence against the vice president ruled that there was sufficient grounds to impeach her. The impeachment petition ⁠was backed by 255 of 318 lawmakers on Monday, surpassing the one‑third threshold required. With her ally-turned-enemy Marcos limited by the constitution to a single term in office, Duterte is the clear favorite to succeed him in 2028, but the impeachment could derail her bid. Duterte denies wrongdoing, and her legal team has described the impeachment effort as defective and a “fishing expedition”. The Senate must convene a trial with its members as jurors. The impeachment effort is the latest in a series of setbacks for the influential Duterte family, with the vice president feeling constant heat from her bitter feud with Marcos and her father Rodrigo Duterte awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court over a war on ⁠drugs that killed thousands of people during his 2016-2022 presidency. But in what could be a boost for Duterte, there was drama on Monday in the upper house Senate, where ⁠a motion was passed to remove its president and replace him with Alan Peter Cayetano, a staunch loyalist of her family. The change in Senate leadership means ⁠Cayetano, a former running mate of Duterte’s father, would be the presiding judge if an impeachment trial is convened. The impeachment vote served as a barometer of Marcos’ support in the House: 255 of the 290 lawmakers in attendance voted to impeach Duterte, more than the one-thirds required to advance the case to trial.But unlike in the House, a conviction in the Senate is uncertain. The country’s 24 senators are elected on the national level. In the 2025 mid-term vote, where half of the Senate was elected, candidates allied with Duterte fared better than those who ran under Marcos’ coalition. But the outcome of an impeachment vote will be difficult to predict under the country’s multi-party system with shifting alliances. Duterte announced her intention to run for president in February, much earlier than expected. She holds a 17-point lead over her nearest rival based on a survey in March by Manila pollster WR Numero. In the 2022 elections, Duterte was the survey frontrunner to succeed her father, but she formed an alliance with Marcos and ran for vice president instead to consolidate their support bases and fend off a reformist wave. The pair won by a landslide. But the alliance soon unraveled as they pursued divergent political agendas. Marcos’ allies in the House, led by then speaker Martin Romualdez, investigated allegations of fund misuse in Duterte’s office. Then in March last year, Marcos allowed the International Criminal Court to arrest Rodrigo Duterte and detain him at The Hague.