VP Sara expects renewed ouster push
Vice President Sara Duterte said she is preparing for another impeachment bid next month, with the Constitution’s one-year ban on refiling cases against her about to expire — just as fresh political moves against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. gain traction.
Speaking to supporters in The Hague, the Netherlands, Duterte said she fully expects impeachment efforts to resurface, but brushed them off as money-driven rather than rooted in genuine accountability.
“It’s all about the money,” she said, claiming her critics are pushing impeachment for personal or political gain.
Her remarks come nearly a year after an earlier impeachment attempt against her fizzled out following a landmark Supreme Court ruling.
In February last year, lawmakers endorsed an impeachment complaint accusing Duterte of misuse of confidential funds, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust, after a congressional probe into her spending as vice president and former education secretary. It was already the fourth complaint filed against her in just a few months. The case reached the Senate, which briefly convened as an impeachment court before proceedings stalled amid legal challenges.
On 25 July 2025, the Supreme Court struck down the complaint as unconstitutional, ruling that it violated the Constitution’s one-year ban on initiating more than one impeachment proceeding against the same official. The justices said earlier complaints filed in December 2024 had already triggered the impeachment process, but stressed that their decision did not rule on the substance of the allegations — only on procedure. They also made clear that a new complaint could be filed once the one-year ban lapses in early February 2026.
With that deadline now approaching, both Duterte’s allies and critics expect impeachment efforts to return — something the vice president said she has long anticipated, even as she continues to frame any renewed move as a politically funded campaign rather than a true push for accountability.
