MANILA, Philippines — A dramatic political showdown has unfolded in the Philippines as Vice President Sara Duterte faces a historic Senate impeachment trial, rejecting all charges against her as politically motivated persecution while declaring she will emerge from the public proceedings bloodied but unbowed.
The 48-year-old politician, who has openly announced her intention to run for the presidency in the 2028 national elections to succeed incumbent Ferdinand Marcos Jr., was formally impeached by the Marcos-allied majority in the country’s House of Representatives back in May. Her televised trial, conducted by the 24-member Senate acting as an impeachment court, officially got underway on Monday, marking one of the most high-profile political crises the Southeast Asian nation has faced in recent years.
On the second day of proceedings Tuesday, senators took up the first of four core charges against the vice president: that she made explicit death threats against President Marcos, the first lady, and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez during a November 2024 online news conference. Prosecutors presented video evidence during the session that captured Duterte stating she would arrange for the three to be killed by an unnamed associate if she herself were killed amid escalating political tensions between the two camps. A second video released as evidence also captured Duterte saying she wanted to have the president’s head cut off, with Duterte clarifying in the footage that her statements were not a joke and that her requested hitman had already agreed to the plan.
Appearing briefly at the Senate complex Tuesday to meet with her legal team, dressed in casual attire and rubber athletic shoes, Duterte addressed reporters ahead of the resumption of trial proceedings. “In this bloodbath and bludgeoning, I will be bloodied but unbowed,” she stated, declining to take further questions from the press. She has repeatedly dismissed all charges against her — which also include allegations of unexplained wealth accumulation, misuse of confidential government funds, corruption, bribery, and inciting sedition — as baseless political attacks designed to derail her presidential ambitions.
The impeachment caps a rapid and dramatic collapse of what was once a powerful political alliance. Duterte and Marcos ran as a united ticket in the 2022 presidential elections, merging the massive voter bases of two of the Philippines’ most powerful political dynasties to win the top two positions. That partnership fractured soon after they took office, however, and tensions have escalated steadily over the past two years.
Supporters of the vice president say the impeachment is a coordinated effort by Marcos and his closest allies to eliminate Duterte as a political challenger ahead of the 2028 vote. The vice president’s camp has also been hit by a string of setbacks targeting her senatorial allies in recent weeks: two pro-Duterte senators have already been arrested and detained on charges of large-scale corruption, while a third has gone into hiding after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for him as a co-conspirator in alleged crimes against humanity linked to the anti-drug crackdown of former President Rodrigo Duterte, Sara Duterte’s father.
The former president’s anti-drug campaign, carried out between 2011 and 2019 when he held office, was accused of extrajudicially killing thousands of mostly low-income suspected drug dealers and users. Rodrigo Duterte is currently detained by the ICC at The Hague and is scheduled to go on trial for these alleged crimes on November 30. Sara Duterte has publicly held Marcos responsible for coordinating her father’s arrest and handover to the ICC last year, deepening the rift between the two political camps.
Philippine justice officials and lead prosecutors have pushed back against claims of political retribution, saying the corruption charges against the two arrested senators are backed by solid evidence and completely unrelated to the vice president’s impeachment trial.
For Sara Duterte, the stakes of the impeachment trial could not be higher. To secure a conviction that would remove her from office and bar her from future political office, two-thirds of the 24-member Senate — or 16 votes — are required. A conviction would effectively end her 2028 presidential bid before it even begins. Even if Duterte is acquitted, however, she still faces separate ongoing criminal investigations by anti-graft prosecutors for many of the same offenses laid out in the impeachment articles, meaning legal and political challenges will likely continue regardless of the trial’s outcome.