Dutertes Face Impeachment and Prosecutions Raps

Current Vice President Sara Duterte and former president Rodrigo Duterte face scrutiny as Sara addresses impeachment rumors while her father is ordered to appear in court over his first criminal complaint for grave public statements made “threatening” an opposition lawmaker.

Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte dismissed the alleged impeachment rumors posed against her on November 20, highlighting that she already spoke with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. about the matter. “I believe I still have the trust of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Why? Because before he left [for Hawaii], I asked him about the impeachment. [The President] told me that it’s true that he knows about the impeachment,” Duterte said without further elaborating details about the supposed closed-door conversation with the president.

President Marcos affirmed support for the Vice President despite impeachment rumors. In a media statement in Hawaii on November 20 (Philippine time), the president emphasized, they are “closely monitoring [the impeachment issue] because we don’t want [Sara Duterte] to be impeached…she does not deserve to be impeached. So, we will make sure that this is something that we will pay very close attention to.”

The impeachment allegations surfaced after ACT Teachers Representative France Castro, a vocal critic of the Duterte family, disclosed that there were “casual conversations” among House members on the possible impeachment of the Vice President. Castro highlighted that the discussions were not a “serious matter.”

Meanwhile, House Speaker Martin Romualdez firmly denied allegations of impeachment stirring in the House of Representatives. “I’m not aware of anything. Nothing filed, no news of that…I don’t know, I don’t know your sources, but there’s nothing in the offing, nothing in general,” he said in a media in San Francisco, California during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. The Vice President and Romualdez have been in an uneasy relationship and drama for months after allegations of politicking surfaced following the removal of Duterte’s PHP 650 million in confidential funds for OVP and Department of Education (DepEd) for 2024.

Duterte faced criticism over for use of confidential funds, after it was discovered that the Office of the President transferred PHP125 million in confidential funds to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) in 2022. The audit discovery is now a subject of petition before the Supreme Court, with petitioners arguing that it constitutes a “clear usurpation of the power of Congress,” and seeking the return of the funds. In recent weeks, Duterte has chosen to respond to critics by launching personal attacks and complete denial of allegations about the improper use of funds.

At the sidelines of Sara Duterte’s leadership and political challenges, her father former president Rodrigo Duterte is summoned by a court on November 15 over a criminal complaint filed against the former president. The Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office issued a subpoena to Rodrigo Duterte ordering him to appear before the court on December 4 and December 11 for complaints of Grave Threats under Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code and Section 6 of the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

The complaint, filed by ACT Teachers Representative France Castro, is a “preliminary investigation” of the case over grave threats issued on October 10 in the television program “Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa (From the Masses, For the Masses)” on Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), a broadcasting arm of Kingdom of Jesus Christ led by Filipino televangelist wanted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation Apollo Quiboloy. The former president explicitly said on the radio show, “The first one to target with the intelligence funds [of Sara Duterte] is you France, and other communists who I like to kill.” Castro mentioned that Duterte’s criticisms towards her ensued after she criticized the confidential funds of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Rodrigo Duterte responded on November 15, after being summoned by the court. In the same SMNI program, he said, “I would just go to jail…France Castro is oppressing me… They are the left, who are the members of the Communist Party of the Philippines…they are rebels. They want to ruin the Philippines.”

While it is clear that the President’s political coalition is currently split into factions, PSA analysts do not believe such political competition will result in political instability or civil unrest. However, the competition amongst the political factions is relevant to the 2025 midterm elections and presidential elections in 2028. Several individuals aligned with former President Duterte are expected to make Senate runs in 2025, and the outcome of those elections will help shape the political landscape for the presidential elections in 2028.