Tale of Article I’s origin

When political decisions are made beyond public view and clear evidence is scarce, storytelling can help us imagine the dealings among those in power. It does not claim to reveal the whole truth; rather, it offers one way to think about how alliances and conflicts may have taken shape.

This is how the Greek historian Thucydides reconstructed parts of the Peloponnesian War. In that same spirit, I tell this story of Article I of the Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Sara Duterte.

Once upon a time, before the 2022 elections, a coalition was imagined in the back rooms of power. The UniTeam joined two dynasties: Marcos, with its machinery of return, and Duterte, with its loyal base. To voters, it looked like unity. To insiders, it looked like a political transaction.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. would return to Malacañang. Sara Duterte would stand beside him as proof that two powerful camps had joined hands. It was not simply a friendship; it was the building of a winning coalition.

The cold logic of power says leaders survive not by pleasing everyone, but by satisfying the few who can keep them in office. These supporters expect protection, positions, budgets, influence, and access. Like guests at a political feast, they must be served.

At first, Sara Duterte was not an enemy. She was a pillar of the ruling coalition. Though she did not receive the defense portfolio she reportedly wanted, she gained access to large confidential funds through the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education. Hidden from ordinary view, these funds became a source of group cohesion.

For a while, the arrangement worked. The Palace had its Vice President. The Vice President had her resources. The House leadership controlled the national purse. Then came the slow turn. Looking toward 2025 and 2028, the Marcos camp began to see Sara Duterte less as a partner and more as a rival given her surname, strong regional backing, intact political machinery, and vast resources.

The story then shifted to the House of Representatives, where its leader stood as the guardian of the budgetary gate. Funds that had once helped keep Duterte inside the coalition could now be withheld, examined, investigated, and exposed. The Senate would later become the stage for the legal battle, which explains why pro-Duterte senators moved to challenge the majority’s hold on power.

This is how Article I was born, not only as a legal charge, but as the record of a broken alliance.

It centered on the alleged misuse and irregular liquidation of P612.5 million in confidential funds — P500 million from the Office of the Vice President and P112.5 million from the Department of Education. The same fund releases once tolerated became a weapon against Duterte.

The irony is painful. What had once been tolerated as political accommodation was later framed as a betrayal of public trust. The administration could invoke accountability; the accused could claim persecution. Both sides could point to the same events because impeachment is never only about law. It is also about who controls the story.

Article I cautions our political elites that access to state resources is contingent: private goods may be withdrawn, and yesterday’s ally may become today’s defendant once she endangers the coalition’s survival.

When Duterte felt excluded, her public anger became part of the drama. Her alleged threats against Marcos, the First Lady, and Speaker Martin Romualdez formed another impeachment charge. Once the former ally was pushed away from the table, every word became easier to use against her.

If this were a Pinoy teleserye, the ending would be simple: the Vice President falls, the ruling coalition survives, and the victors declare that justice has been served. But politics is rarely that clean or clear-cut. For ordinary Filipinos, the lesson is sharper: when public money feeds political coalitions, the people pay for the feast but are served last.

Article I is therefore not only about one Vice President’s possible wrongdoing. It is also about a system that remembers accountability only when powerful allies become enemies.