Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year.
Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects.
Photo: AFP
Under the constitution, an impeachment by the House triggers a Senate trial, where a guilty verdict means expulsion from office and a lifetime ban from political service.
Duterte, daughter of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, is widely considered a potential presidential candidate in 2028.
“It’s about time that VP Sara must be held accountable,” Philippine Representative Leila de Lima, who endorsed one of the fresh complaints, said yesterday. “The complaint basically ... raises the same grounds as the previous complaint, just much [more] condensed and streamlined.”
Key to both filings yesterday are allegations surrounding about US$10 million in unexplained spending while Sara Duterte was education secretary.
Sara Duterte was successfully impeached by the House last year on similar charges brought by a group backed by De Lima and other lawmakers.
In addition to questions over her spending, that complaint alleged that she had made an assassination threat against the president during a late-night news conference, charges she has denied.
An abortive Senate trial that followed saw it kick the case back to the House while questioning its constitutionality.
The Supreme Court subsequently ruled that the impeachment was a breach of a constitutional rule against multiple complaints being filed in the same year.
The court upheld its ruling last week.
In a statement, lawyers for the vice president said they were confident that the accusations would be proven baseless.
Marcos is separately facing impeachment complaints accusing him of systematically bilking taxpayers out of billions of dollars for bogus flood control projects.
Rage over so-called ghost infrastructure projects has been building for months, where entire towns were buried in floodwaters driven by powerful typhoons in the past year.
The House Justice Committee began hearings over the Marcos complaints yesterday.
Outside, a group of about 100 protesters gathered by the left-wing Makabayan bloc held aloft banners calling for the ouster of both Marcos and Sara Duterte.
“We are protesting ... to remind the lawmakers that their loyalty should be to the people, not to their political patron, not to their political dynasty, not to the president,” Raymond Palatino, 46, said.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS