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.
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