The Philippine Senate yesterday opened the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, kicking off a process that is likely to dominate the country’s politics in the second half of 2026.
In May, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach Duterte for a range of transgressions, including corruption, misuse of government funds, and an alleged plot to kill her former ally, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and his wife. If convicted, which requires a two-thirds vote in the 24-seat chamber, the 48-year-old Duterte would lose her post and be banned from holding elected office for life.
More than 6,000 police officers were deployed around the Senate building for the opening day of the trial, and both supporters and detractors held protests in the vicinity.
The trial, which comes against the backdrop of the bitter feud between Duterte and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., will be held on three days each week, with the prosecution being allotted 62 trial dates and the defense 30. This suggests that the trial could drag on into the latter months of 2026, and possibly beyond.
During Monday’s opening session, prosecutors from the House of Representatives focused primarily on the corruption allegations against Duterte. “If ordinary Filipinos are held to account, why not the most powerful government official? That is why the trial is important,” said Congresswomen Gerville Luistro, presenting the prosecution’s opening argument.
Duterte, who has announced her plan to seek the presidency in 2028, did not attend yesterday’s session, but has flatly denied the allegations against her. Earlier this week, she stated that the articles of impeachment submitted by the House “suffer from fatal constitutional, procedural, and substantive defects” and that the evidence against her consisted of “erroneous conclusions, speculation, political rhetoric and materials gathered through an unauthorized evidentiary fishing expedition.”
During yesterday’s session, Duterte’s defense counsel Sheila Sison dismissed the prosecution’s claims of corruption linked to the alleged misuse of confidential funds, stating that Marcos and his Cabinet approved the request and the release of the allegedly questionable funds in the first 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.” But she earned a reprieve last July, 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 largely an outgrowth of the political feud that has raged between the Duterte and Marcos clans over the past two years. Despite teaming up to great political effect ahead of the 2022 presidential election, when both Duterte and Marcos were elected with decisive majorities, the two families have since fallen out over a mix of personal and political disagreements.
The feud led Marcos’ allies to begin investigations into Duterte’s conduct as education secretary, prior to her resignation in mid-2024. It also led Marcos last year to approve the arrest of Duterte’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, on an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC). The 81-year-old is now awaiting trial at The Hague-based court on charges of crimes against humanity related to his bloody anti-drug campaign.
The outcome of the Senate trial remains uncertain. The Dutertes have more allies in the Senate than they do in the House, and it will be challenging for prosecutors to muster the two-thirds vote necessary to convict the vice president.
However, recent dramatic events in the Senate, including a leadership coup by the pro-Duterte faction in May, and a counter-coup by its opponents on June 17, have unsettled Duterte’s supporters.
As things stand, three pro-Duterte senators will not be physically present for the duration of the trial, and will be unable to cast a vote. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa remains in hiding to avoid an ICC warrant seeking his arrest for his involvement in Duterte’s “war on drugs.” Meanwhile, senators Jinggoy Estrada and Rodante Marcoleta have both surrendered to the authorities on charges of plunder. Estrada claims that he has been targeted due to his support for the Dutertes, while Marcoleta maintains his innocence.
It is currently unclear how the absence of these three figures will impact the Senate proceedings. Representative Gerville “Jinky” Luistro, a member of the prosecution, has argued that while the Constitution requires a vote of “two-thirds of all the members” of the Senate to convict Duterte, this threshold should only include senators who take part in the trial. Exactly how to handle their absence is also likely to become a subject of heated debate as the trial moves forward.
