Third impeachment complaint filed against VP Duterte

Thirteen priests, nuns, and members of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) filed the third impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday at the House of Representatives.

The group, bringing voluminous paperwork, was led by their counsel, lawyer Amando Virgil Ligutan, and trooped to the office of House Secretary General Cheloy Garafil to lodge their complaint.

House Deputy Minority Leader Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Rep. Leila de Lima served as endorser of the 98-page document, which was marked received by Garafil past noon.

This was not Ligutan’s first time filing against the Vice President, as he also represented one of the three impeachment complaints lodged against Duterte in December 2024, during the final months of the 19th Congress. The lawyer said, “Here we go again. This site is familiar since we were also here last year.”

All three groups of impeachment filers from the 19th Congress have already lodged fresh complaints against the country’s second-highest official.

“This is the second time that the third set of complainants is filing an impeachment complaint against the Vice President. On what grounds? We are alleging, invoking the grounds of culpable violation of the Constitution; betrayal of public trust; plunder, malversation, graft and corruption; bribery; and other high crimes involving P612.5 million,” Ligutan said.

A group of 45 activists and former Makabayan bloc solons on February 2 filed the first impeachment complaint against the Vice President in the current 20th Congress. Minutes later, they were followed by 17 civil society and religious group members.

Incumbent Makabayan bloc solons ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Party-list Rep. Sarah Elago, and Kabataan Party-list Rep. Renee Co endorsed the first complaint, while de Lima and Akbayan Party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña endorsed the second complaint.

Ligutan’s complaint is significant—and possibly strategic—because it is the first filed after the February 5 date initially mentioned by the Supreme Court (SC). That date is determined by the one-year bar rule on filing impeachment complaints against impeachable officers, in this case the Vice President.

The complaint alleges that Duterte amassed at least P612.5 million in confidential funds, which were allegedly misused. The high court had earlier declared as unconstitutional the fourth complaint pursued against Duterte via a one-third vote in the House plenary last year, and all three previous complaints were archived.

The Makabayan and de Lima/Cendaña-backed complaints were filed based on a reckoning date of January 14, following the SC’s second ruling on the defeated impeachment case. The high court has yet to clarify which reckoning date should be followed.

Two of the three impeachment complaints have been endorsed by de Lima against Duterte in the 20th Congress.