ASEAN Beat | Politics | Southeast Asia

Philippine Senate Kicks Off Impeachment Trial of Vice President Sara Duterte

Whatever the trial’s outcome, the political war between Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is unlikely to come to a conclusive end.

Members of the Philippine Senate are sworn in as senator-judges for the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte in Manila, Philippines, May 18, 2026.

The Philippine ​Senate yesterday began the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, following a week of chaos in which the feud between the Duterte and Marcos families reached a high pitch of tension.

Last week, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach Duterte for a range of transgressions, including corruption, misuse of government funds, and plotting to kill her former ally, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

If convicted, which requires a two-thirds vote in the 24-seat chamber, the 47-year-old would lose her post and be banned from holding elected office for life.

Duterte, who has announced her plan to seek the presidency in 2028, has denied the charges. Her lawyers said that they are “fully prepared to defend the vice president before the Senate,” and that it would be “incumbent upon the prosecution to discharge the burden of proof.”

Dressed in red robes, the senators yesterday were sworn in as senator-judges, while Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, an ally of Duterte who was elevated to the Senate presidency in a leadership coup last week, assumed the role as the court’s presider.

“The trial of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte is hereby open,” Cayetano declared.

As Rappler lays out, the trial process involves a number of steps. Cayetano yesterday issued a writ of summons, directing Duterte to file an answer to allegations within 10 calendar days of receiving the document. After receiving Duterte’s reply, a team of prosecutors from the House of Representatives will file their reply within five calendar days. There will then be a pre-trial period in which both sides will present their evidence to the Senate, followed by the trial proper, although the court did not say when this would take place.

The impeachment stems from two complaints, filed in February, which allege that Duterte misused 612.5 million pesos ($10 million) in confidential funds in her capacity as vice president and education secretary. The complaints also reference her unexplained wealth, accuse her of bribery when she was education secretary, and take aim at her public threat to have Marcos, his wife, and the president’s cousin Martin Romualdez, the then-House speaker, assassinated in the event of her own killing.

Duterte was previously impeached in February 2025, for a similar suite of transgressions, including “violation of the constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.” In July, Duterte earned a reprieve when the Supreme Court dismissed the complaint on the grounds that it violated a constitutional ban on having multiple impeachment proceedings in a single year.

The impeachment drama is one subplot of the political feud that has raged between Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. for much of the past two years. The two leaders teamed up to great political effect ahead of the 2022 presidential election, when they both were elected with decisive majorities, but have since fallen out over a mix of personal and political disagreements.

The feud led Marcos’ allies to begin investigations into........

© The Diplomat