Philippines Congress prepares to challenge Vice President Sara Duterte | Political Affairs

The pending complaint seeks Duterte’s impeachment and disqualification from holding any public office.

Mindanao, Philippines The Philippine House of Representatives is ready to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, for the second time.

The impeachment vote against Duterte, scheduled for Monday, is the latest in a series of political battles between the Duterte family and President Ferdinand Marcos Jrwhich is putting the country in political trouble, even as it is facing economic problems due to the global energy crisis.

The charges against Duterte include two counts of breach of trust and breach of public trust for misuse of public funds, failure to disclose assets, corruption and related death threats to Marcoshis wife Liza Araneta and former Speaker of the House Martin Romualdez.

One of the most egregious of the complaints against the vice president involves a private bank loan to the anti-betting agency of more than $110m.

“The magnitude of these events cannot be clearly explained by the official income, the declared assets, or the businesses and services that have been done by the family,” Terry Ridon, another member of the House and one of the complainants, said in a statement published on X Monday.

“So voting today is not just a matter of politics, but it is a law for people to be held accountable.”

The House wants the Senate to declare Duterte “guilty” of all four articles of impeachment, demanding his removal as vice president and “disqualification from holding any office” in the government.

Impeachment requires a three-quarter vote of the House to be approved before it can be sent to the Senate for impeachment.

The votes had already been reached since May 7, a member of the House from Mindanao, Duterte’s stronghold, told Al Jazeera.

The senator, who asked not to be named, said the final vote could be closer to the first time Duterte was impeached, adding that he intended to vote in favor of impeachment.

A past movements against Duterte was issued in 2025 – it received 215 votes in the 313-member House, not above the one-third required, but more than two-thirds of the representatives.

However, the case was later dismissed by the Supreme Court on technical questions.

A two-thirds vote in the Senate is required to convict Duterte and remove him from office.

Duterte and Marcos ran as a team in 2022, but their political alliance later fell apart, leading to further divisions and tensions. the arrest of elder Duterte and the order of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and now the condemnation of the vice president, who has already announced his intention to compete in the 2028 presidential race.

Last week, members of the House Judiciary Committee voted unanimously, 53-0, to find a reason to impeach Duterte, and approve the petition for debate in the House.

On May 7, Mr. Duterte said everything that follows in the impeachment “is written by God”.

“According to what we have already discussed with (former) President Duterte, everything that happens in a person’s life is written by God. So, if I am condemned, what is written by God. If I am not condemned, we will see each other tomorrow, Duterte told supporters after visiting his father in The Hague, Netherlands, on May 6.