The heir apparent of a powerful political dynasty is now a vice president on the brink of removal from office. It would be a fitting retribution for the hundreds of millions Sara Duterte stole from the country, if not for the fact that the deciding trial to convict her has not even convened yet.
This is the first time that a vice president of the Philippines has been impeached, and by a record high two-thirds of the Marcos ally-dominated House of Representatives. The impeachment spurred discussions on the two’s dynastic squabbling and bets on which side would come out on top—discussions even more pertinent with the fast-approaching midterm elections.
But the campaign to convict Duterte is not merely the concern of contending dynasties alone. Her conviction is pivotal for accountability, setting another key precedent that no official is powerful enough to trump the ultimate potency of the people’s reckoning.
That President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s own son was first to sign among the House representatives solidified the fact that vested political interests undergird these impeachment proceedings. It is precisely because this fourth impeachment complaint is Marcos-backed that legislators are approaching it with extreme caution. At the end of the day, it is still those in Senate, many of whom are seeking re-election come May, that decide whether Duterte will be convicted.
It is thus no wonder that most of the impeachment signatories from the House majority represent more localized voting populations, where political leanings are easier to gauge. Meanwhile, key players with more national voting bases like Reps. Camille Villar and Erwin Tulfo, both senatorial candidates, did not sign. It only follows that the senators themselves, many of whom are relatives of the non-signatories, have been lax in the delays of the impeachment trial and hesitant to even discuss it.
Such maneuverings are business as usual for self-serving politicians who engage in similarly corrupt practices and back anomalous spending by their prime patron.
Congress still receives pork in the form of unprogrammed appropriations, which was set to P363.2 billion this year with help of the president. The Office of the President itself had P4.57 billion in confidential funds in 2023 alone. In fact, it was Marcos’s own office that transferred the first tranche of confidential funds to the Office of the Vice President in 2022.
In sharp contrast to the hypocritical malfeasances of these Marcos-aligned proponents of the impeachment complaint, the true opposition’s campaign against corruption has long been all-encompassing, targeting Duterte, Marcos, and allied legislators alike. In fact, it was Makabayan’s own Rep. France Castro who first exposed Duterte’s fraudulent underbelly as early as August 2023, which catalyzed the investigation into the vice president’s corruption.
While majority bloc party leaders took over two months strategizing and mulling over the political implications of their signature on the complaint, the opposition had already filed their damning papers against Duterte and had been campaigning for her impeachment as early as December 2024. Representatives from the likes of the Makabayan bloc and Akbayan have been steadfast in holding Duterte accountable, despite the uphill battle to convince the majority and—for senatorial candidates Reps. Castro and Arlene Brosas—the implications on their election bids.
It is against this backdrop that the electoral victory of the opposition is most pertinent, with the impeachment trial likely to convene June 2, unless Marcos calls for a special Senate session. It could then extend into the next Congress, where 12 new senators will join as judges of the impeachment court and ultimately decide whether or not to remove Duterte from office.
The opposition’s biggest role in the impending Senate trial is not just to vote in favor of Duterte’s conviction, but also to shift the discourse on impeachment from the lens of a dramatic political rivalry to the people’s right to hold those who breach the public’s trust liable for their transgressions, regardless of whatever family they’re backed by.
This, however, assumes that the impeachment case won’t simply be declared moot if not concluded by the indefinite adjournment of Congress. With the uncertainty of the impeachment proceedings, what is most imperative now is to actively campaign for Marcos to convene the Senate, and for the Senate to begin trial and urgently convict Duterte.
Even those in the highest of seats, after all, will be compelled to give way to the clamor of thousands. The Second EDSA Revolution, which led to the ouster of former President Joseph Estrada, is evidence enough that mass mobilization can turn the tides on a seemingly skewed impeachment proceeding.
Impeachment has always been a numbers game, and there is no larger mass than a united citizenry rallying under the same banner. Such is the genuine principle-based unity that must supplant the egocentric underpinnings of the now-defunct UniTeam.
There is no better time than this electoral campaigning period for tactical partnerships among the broad opposition to emerge, fulfilling the twofold task of mobilizing for Duterte’s conviction while amassing enough support to land crucial government seats where they can buttress long-term accountability mechanisms.
Through such collective action, we can etch into history that the heir apparent of a powerful political dynasty became the first vice president of the Philippines to be removed from office, not merely due to political scheming between rival dynasties, but through the decisive will of the people she betrayed. ●
First published in the Feb. 18, 2025 print edition of the Collegian.
