OPINION | Impeached

February 5, 2025 , 05:10 PM

By Manny Mogato

(February 5, 2025) — The House of Representatives voted to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio in an entirely new complaint, the fourth impeachment motion after the lower house sat on three earlier complaints.

More than 200 members of Congress signed the motion, about double the required number of signatures to impeach an official under the 1987 Constitution.

Sara Duterte is the first-ever vice president to be impeached and face trial in the Senate, which could convict and remove her from her position.

Only three officials had been impeached by the lower house since 2001 – former president Joseph Estrada, former ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, and former Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona.

Corona was removed from office after the Senate voted to convict him. Gutierrez’s trial was not completed when she opted to quit her position.

Estrada’s trial was discontinued due to a controversy over a sealed envelope, but it led to the second EDSA revolt that catapulted then Vice President Gloria Arroyo to power.

After receiving the impeachment documents from the lower house, the Senate has to constitute itself as a political court with the members of Congress serving as prosecutors. Sara would choose her battery of lawyers to defend her, hoping to convince nine senators to block her removal from public office.

Some political observers say there was no more time to either convict or clear Sara of the complaints filed by the congressmen because of the May 2025 midterm elections.

But some people believed otherwise.

They say the impeachment court is not a legislative function of the senators. The four-month recess in both chambers was a break to allow lawmakers to campaign for the midterm elections.

The national campaign for 12 Senate seats will begin next week while the local campaign for Congress and local positions start in late March.

The impeachment trial at the Senate would be a big opportunity for senators running for re-election to gain media mileage because the process would be covered live by the press.

The Senate would become a grand stage for lawmakers running for re-election in the midterm elections as the public would be glued on both social and traditional media during the trial.

The senators seeking re-election will save a lot from campaigning around the country because of the free airtime provided by the trial.

If the trial would go beyond the 19th Congress, a new set of senators could continue hearing the impeachment complaint.

In case that happens, the Marcos administration is hoping it could dominate the May elections, winning nine or ten seats in the Senate, reducing the number of pro-Sara in the upper house.

That means, there will be a bigger chance Sara would be removed from her position and will render her ineligible to run for any public office in 2028.

Sara’s political fortunes were reversed when she broke away from President Marcos last year, criticizing his policies and accusing him of being party to high-level corruption in government.

Her allies had questioned the 2025 national budget before the Supreme Court, pointing out flaws that violated the Constitution.

Then, she threatened to kill the president, the first lady, and the speaker of the House of Representatives if something happened to her.

That was the last straw, angering Marcos who vowed to take action on the threat. It was a signal for the president’s allies in Congress to go after the vice president.

Marcos hesitated to support the impeachment of his vice president despite opinion polls favoring the impeachment process. He had said the impeachment was a waste of time because the vice president was irrelevant anyway.

However, there were reports that Marcos’ son, House Senior Deputy Speaker Sandro Marcos, was the first to sign the impeachment motion could indicate that the president had a change of heart and was supporting the political process.

Sara’s trust and approval rating did not help, dropping by double digits from July 2024 to January 2025 based on a Social Weather Stations survey.

If she was topping opinion polls, way ahead of the president, she is now down a few points from Marcos.

Her closest political rival, Senator Raffy Tulfo, has also moved closer to her numbers. Her refusal to explain where her millions of confidential and intelligence funds went was the primary reason for her declining ratings.

The impeachment could be the nail in Sara’s political coffin, denying her a chance to become president in 2028.

But, she has a choice. She could resign and fight again.

The views expressed by the columnist do not necessarily reflect that of the media organization.

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