The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte opened in the Philippine Senate on Monday, with the outcome set to determine whether she can run for the presidency in 2028 TurkicWorld reports via arabnews.
The 48-year-old former mayor of Davao City assumed the country’s second-highest office, after joining Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — the son and namesake of the late Philippine dictator — on the ticket that won a landslide victory in the 2022 election.
But their alliance soon disintegrated, and over the past two years, they have been locked in a bitter power struggle.
Duterte has since faced numerous impeachment attempts — the first sitting vice president in the Philippines’ history to be subjected to such proceedings.
Widely considered a frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election, the eldest daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte is now facing a battle for her political life. If senators, who sit as trial judges, convict her, she could be permanently barred from elected office.
According to the constitution, 16 of 24 senators are required to convict the vice-president — a threshold that may be difficult to reach, as both Duterte and Marcos have comparable numbers of allies in the Senate. But the fact that the trial is televised and in the spotlight of public attention may already erode Duterte’s chances in the 2028 race.
“I think the goal is to demonstrate … that the vice president is guilty or that the vice president is accountable for the allegations that are being hurled against her, which will definitely weaken her political capital going into the 2028 elections,” Dr. Froilan Calilung, political scientist from the University of Santo Tomas, told Arab News.
“The administration is doing everything within its power to convict the vice president. And this goes without saying that they’re trying to do this in preparation for 2028.”
While attempts to impeach Duterte have been underway for more than two years, she has been able to survive the political battle. In 2025, the removal was prevented by a Supreme Court verdict that stopped it citing constitutional safeguards.
When the verdict, which gave her temporary immunity against the same or similar complaint for one year, lapsed in mid-January, a new campaign began.
In May, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach Duterte, accusing her of a range of issues, including a death threat that she publicly made against Marcos, his wife and the House speaker in 2024, and misusing millions of dollars in public funds.
Duterte has consistently denied wrongdoing, describing the moves against her as a vendetta.
Her father’s political heir, Duterte served as vice-mayor to him when he led Davao City in the 2010s. She became Davao’s mayor herself when her father served as president from 2016 and 2022, and her family’s support for Marcos in the 2022 elections was seen as key in the incumbent’s victory.
When Duterte announced her 2028 bid earlier in February, she apologized to the voters for supporting Marcos in the previous vote.
Analysts say the outcome of her impeachment trial will not only determine Duterte’s political future but also test trust in Philippine institutions in a political scene dominated by two families.
“While the current issue has been affected by the rivalries between two political families and their allies, the impeachment is first and foremost an accountability issue. There is a need to determine if a high-ranking official is indeed guilty,” Maria Ela Atienza, professor of political science at the University of the Philippines, told Arab News.
“It is also a test if the Senate and individual senators can perform their democratic duties.”
Farah Decano, dean of the College of Law, Lyceum Northwestern University, warned of possible misinformation campaigns throughout the proceedings. It was an opportunity for Filipinos to be “taught to form judgment based on evidence, not sentiments, not political loyalty,” she said.
“That we are availing of this constitutional mechanism to bring to light alleged violations by an impeachable official is evidence that democracy is alive.”
