Philippine vice president faces 2 new impeachment bids after surviving attempt last year

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Activists filed two impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte Monday, accusing her of large-scale corruption after an initial attempt to unseat her a year ago was shot down by the Supreme Court on a legal technicality.

The new impeachment bids filed before the House of Representatives are the latest episode in the stormy political life of Duterte, a 47-year-old lawyer and former city mayor who has been touted by supporters as a potential presidential contender in 2028.

She is the daughter of ex- President Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw bloody anti-drug crackdowns while in office from 2016 to 2022. He was arrested and detained in the Netherlands by the International Criminal Court last year for alleged crimes against humanity.

The vice president had blamed Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., once her political ally, for allowing what she called the illegal arrest and kidnapping of her father last year by the global court. Her camp has claimed opponents were resorting to fabricated criminal cases to block her from running for president in 2028.

“We are prepared to confront these allegations squarely through the proper constitutional processes, confident that a fair and impartial review will demonstrate that the accusations are devoid of both factual and legal basis,” the vice president’s lawyer, Michael Poa, said in a statement.

The new complaints centered on her alleged illegal use and mishandling of 612.5 million pesos ($10.3 million) in confidential funds from the vice president’s office, and also from her time as education secretary under Marcos.

The allegations were investigated two years ago by members of the House, which was dominated by Marcos’s allies, but the vice president refused to respond in detail to questions and skipped some of the televised hearings.

One of the complaints also accused the vice president of having unexplained wealth, including in personal bank accounts. A leading anti-graft prosecutor said his agency was trying to gain access to those accounts as part of a separate criminal investigation.

The vice president’s threat during an online news conference in November 2024 to have the president, his wife and House of Representatives speaker killed by an assassin if she herself were killed amid their disputes was also cited in the one of the impeachment complaints.

The vice president, “while occupying the second highest office of the land, has repeatedly and brazenly conducted herself in a manner that strikes at the very foundations of constitutional order,” the complaint said. “Her acts constitute grave abuses of power, open defiance of constitutional restraints, and a sustained betrayal of the public trust.”

Most of the allegations were already included in an impeachment complaint filed against her more than a year ago.

The House rapidly voted to impeach Duterte in February last year and sent the case to the Senate for trial. The Supreme Court, however, later ruled that the lower chamber of Congress violated a constitutional rule that only one impeachment case could be processed by it in a single year against an impeachable official.

Marcos is also facing two impeachment complaints in the House, which is dominated by his allies. The allegations against the president include his failure to veto budgetary appropriations for infrastructure projects in recent years where he and allied lawmakers are accused of taking kickbacks.

Officials have strongly denied the allegations against the president. The vice president, however, has said that Marcos should be investigated and sent to prison for approving questionable allocations in last year's budget for flood control projects, where influential legislators, including his close allies, earned huge kickbacks.