Philippines feud escalates as lawmakers vote to impeach vice-president

The Philippines’ parliament has voted to impeach Vice-President Sara Duterte following complaints about alleged corruption.

Duterte has been accused of misusing millions of dollars in public funds and threatening to have President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr assassinated.

She has denied the charges and alleged she is the victim of a political vendetta.

The shock move is widely seen as an escalation of the bitter feud between Duterte and Marcos which has kept the nation on edge for months. Both are scions of Philippine political dynasties: she is the daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, while he is the son of the late strongman leader Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

A total of 215 out of 306 members of the House of Representatives voted for impeachment, well above the one-third threshold needed for the bill to pass.  The bill will now be heard by the 24-member Senate, which will convene as an impeachment court.

If found guilty, Duterte faces removal from her post and would be the first vice-president in Philippine history to be impeached.  She is expected to stay in office until the Senate delivers its judgement. A trial date has not been set yet.

Duterte is widely perceived as a potential successor to Marcos, who is ineligible to run again in 2028 as the constitution limits presidents to a single six-year term.

An impeachment would effectively bar her from the presidency, as she would be permanently banned from holding public office.

The move comes ahead of the mid-term elections in May, which will be seen as a referendum for Marcos halfway into his term as well a barometer of public support for Duterte.

Duterte has not commented on the impeachment vote. But her elder brother who represents their hometown of Davao in parliament, Paolo Duterte, said the administration was “treading on dangerous ground” with what he described as a “clear act of political persecution”.

Marcos has also not commented on Duterte’s impeachment. In November, he had said it would be a “waste of time” for lawmakers to impeach her when it has more important work to do.

Since the end of Ferdinand Marcos Sr’s dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in 1986, only one sitting president has been impeached – Joseph Estrada in 2000, for alleged corruption.

But his trial ended without a judgement after a popular revolt forced him from power in January 2001.

Only one impeachment trial made it to a verdict, that of former Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona, who was convicted of corruption in 2012.

Both the Estrada and Corona impeachment trials were highly politicised and divisive affairs and dragged on for months.

Duterte and Marcos had presented a picture of unity when they ran for the 2022 elections, calling themselves the “UniTeam”.

But cracks began to appear even before they assumed office, when Duterte asked to handle the defence portfolio in Marcos’ cabinet but instead was made education minister.

Their alliance unravelled further soon after they took power, as they pursued their separate political agendas while differing on crucial fronts such as diplomacy.

Their differences on the Philippines’ relationship to the US and China became more pronounced, as encounters between Philippine and Chinese ships in disputed waters became more frequent.

Marcos has pivoted the Philippines back to the US, reversing the pro-China stance of Duterte’s father.

He has also promised a less violent approach against illegal drug rings, dialling back the elder Duterte’s “war on drugs” that left over 6,000 suspects killed, according to a government count.

The lower house of parliament, where Marcos’s allies hold power, then started scrutinising Duterte’s budget requests, particularly her confidential funds which are not covered by state audits.

In July last year, she resigned from the cabinet.

The feud took a dramatic turn a few months later when, in a late-night livestreamed press conference, Duterte said she “talked to a person” to “go kill” Marcos if she were assassinated.

She later said that she was not plotting to assassinate the President and Marcos had dismissed the threat as a “storm in a teacup”.