Sara told: Palace bid no defense vs impeachment
Vice President Sara Duterte’s announcement that she will run for president in 2028 cannot be used as a defense against allegations raised in the impeachment complaints against her, Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. said on Thursday.
Abante, who endorsed the fourth impeachment complaint against Duterte, said the charges against the Vice President did not deal with her possible presidency but about accountability as the second highest official in the land and her fitness to continue holding that office.
In response to a reporter’s question, the lawmaker said he did not see her announcement as a “disadvantage” to the impeachment proceedings “because we’re not talking about 2028.”
“This is about 2026, about whether the Vice President remains fit to hold the second-highest office in the land. I’m not talking about her plan for the presidency, I’m talking right now on her current position as Vice President,” Abante said.
“Candidacy announcements do not erase accountability,” he added. “Running for president is not a defense to grave allegations. It is precisely why accountability must be faced squarely and promptly.”
Endorsed by Deputy Speaker
Lawyer Nathaniel Cabrera filed the fourth impeachment complaint against Duterte on Wednesday afternoon. It was based primarily on her alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds (CF), nondeclaration of all her assets, abuse of power, bribery of officials and her threats against the lives of President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and former Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Deputy Speaker Paolo Ortega V also endorsed the complaint and it was received by House Secretary General Cheloy Velicaria Garafil.
Cabrera segregated the grounds for impeachment against Duterte into three categories: culpable violation of the 1987 Constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, bribery, and other high crimes.
Hours before the complaint was filed, Duterte made her announcement, ending years of speculation about her quest for the presidency.
‘Heart of public trust’
According to Abante, Duterte’s declaration should give her even more reason to face the charges against her “because the people are the ones affected here—not her, but the people.”
He said he endorsed the complaint because the allegations “go to the very heart of public trust.”
“Impeachment exists for exactly this situation—when a public official’s actions raise serious questions of integrity, legality and fitness to serve. And I’m not referring to a future position, I’m referring right now to the current position she has, as Vice President,” Abante said.
There have been questions raised about Duterte’s own presidential ambitions even before she agreed to be the running mate of Mr. Marcos in 2022.
Duterte, who was then Davao City mayor, was being pushed as successor to her father, ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, but she chose to form the “Uniteam” alliance with Mr. Marcos.
Not long after the elections, however, relations between the two started to sour and the alliance began to shake. In May 2023, Duterte resigned from Lakas-CMD, the political party of Marcos’ cousin, then Speaker Romualdez.
Political veterans like the late Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman believed that Duterte’s resignation was related to the House’s decision to remove the senior deputy speakership post from former President and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo—considered to be the Vice President’s mentor.
Denied CF allocations
After the House decided not to give Duterte’s offices any CF allocations in 2023, Duterte’s father and her brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, started criticizing Marcos and accusing him of being a drug addict.
In January 2024, Marcos fired back, saying that his predecessor’s outbursts may have been due to long use of fentanyl—a potent opioid that Duterte had admitted taking for his shoulder pain from a motorcycle accident.
By June 2024, Duterte decided to resign from her post as education secretary, formally breaking with the Marcos administration.
After her resignation, several congressional investigations followed, revealing alleged irregularities in the spending of CF allocations by the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education.
First impeachment
The investigations’ findings—along with Duterte’s statements that she arranged the killing of Marcos, the first lady and Romualdez if she were killed in an alleged assassination plot—were used for the first set of impeachment complaints against her.
She was impeached on Feb. 5, 2025, after 215 House members signed the fourth complaint that was filed against her at the time.
But on July 25 that year, the Supreme Court, deciding on petitions questioning her impeachment, ruled that her impeachment was unconstitutional for violating the rule barring multiple impeachment processes against the same official within one year.
The House filed a motion for reconsideration but it was dismissed with finality by the Court on Jan. 29.
New complaints
Garafil’s office said in a statement that the verified complaint endorsed by Abante was transmitted on Thursday to the Office of Speaker Faustino “Bojie” Dy III.
Under current House rules, and in accordance with the Supreme Court’s Jan. 29 decision that sets the reckoning dates for the impeachment process, Dy has until March 2 to transmit the first two impeachment complaints to the House committee on justice.
The first two impeachment complaints—filed by Makabayan Coalition and civil society groups—were received by Garafil’s office on Feb. 2. The third complaint from clergy members and lawyers, meanwhile, was filed on Feb. 9.
The Supreme Court decision requires that impeachment complaints be included in the Order of Business of the House within 10 session days. Following the Court’s new definition of a calendar day—a day in which the House holds session—there have been seven session days from Feb. 2 to Feb. 18.
The eighth and ninth session days would be on Feb. 23 and Feb. 24, while Feb. 25 would not be counted as it is a holiday. Feb. 16 and Feb. 17 were also not included in the count as the House did not hold session on those days, with the 16th being a session break and the 17th being the Lunar New Year holiday.
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