Thousands of Filipinos back calls for impeachment of Sara Duterte

Protesters demand accountability for both the vice president and her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Gerard Carreon and Jason Gutierrez
2025.01.31
Manila
Thousands of Filipinos back calls for impeachment of Sara Duterte Protesters hold signs during a rally at the People Power Monument in Manila in support of impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, Jan. 31, 2025.
Ted Aljibe/AFP

Thousands of Filipinos supported by members of the influential Catholic Church marched in northern Manila to call for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, who has been accused of large-scale corruption.

The protesters came from political and civil society groups who support three impeachment complaints already filed against Duterte over her use of confidential funds and her alleged assassination threat against her former political ally and running mate in the 2022 elections, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The protesters also called for the prosecution of Duterte’s father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, for his alleged crimes in the bloody drug war that killed thousands during his administration (2016 to 2022).

“The people demand that past and present government officials be held accountable for their crimes and wrongdoing,” said Teddy Casiño, a protest leader who served in congress and is running for a Senate seat in the May election.

“In particular, we demand the impeachment of VP Sara Duterte and the prosecution of former president Rodrigo Duterte by both the ICC [International Criminal Court] and the local courts.”

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Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte attends a House of Representatives legislative inquiry into her office’s use of public funds in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Nov. 25, 2024. (Eloisa Lopez/Reuters)

The protests came a few months ahead of the May 12 mid-term elections and amid an open feud between the Marcos and Duterte families, two of the most influential political clans in the Philippines.

The vice president’s resignation from the cabinet where she served as education secretary in June 2024 sealed the collapse of an alliance between the families. The alliance had led to a rout of the opposition led by former Vice President Leni Robredo in the 2022 polls. 

The split between Sara Marcos and Duterte – whose alliance was once described as a “marriage made in heaven” by a sister of the president – could impact outcomes in May, analysts have said.

Impeachment complaints

The impeachment complaints against Sara Duterte have been filed before the House of Representatives. If a third of the 316-member body were to find any of the complaints substantial in form and substance, she would then be impeached and tried in the Senate. 

Sara Duterte had been the subject of a House probe into the alleged budget misuse of 125 million pesos (U.S. $2.14 million) by her office while serving as vice president and as education secretary. She denied any wrongdoing.

In November, the vice president publicly divulged that she had hired someone to target Marcos, his spouse and his cousin, current House Speaker Martin Romualdez, for assassination should she be killed in a plot against her. Sara Duterte later said her statement was taken out of context.

Her father also called on the military that month to protect the Constitution from what he described as “fractured governance” under the current administration.

Marcos, meanwhile, is under pressure from rights groups to allow ICC prosecutors to investigate Rodrigo Duterte for the thousands of deaths carried out in the name of his drug war when he was president.

After initially vowing to block an ICC probe, Marcos in November said he would not stop it after Rodrigo Duterte had told a congressional inquiry that he wanted to be investigated even as he refused to apologize for his role.

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A protester joins calls for the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte near the historic People Power Monument along Manila’s EDSA highway, Jan. 31, 2025. (Gerard Carreon/BenarNews)

Friday’s protests came less than two months after the first of the impeachment complaints were filed and Casiño stressed that people were becoming impatient.

“We say enough. This is too much. Enough. Let’s change the system,” Casiño said.

“Corruption plays a key role in this bureaucratic capitalist system, where public officials treat the government like a profit-making enterprise,” he said.

House member Perci Cendaña, who had endorsed one of the complaints, said he was at a loss to explain why the process has been slow.

“January is almost over and congress has yet to act on the impeachment complaints,” he said. “Will congress let Sara intimidate them?”

But Marcos himself had cautioned his allies in congress against stirring what he feared would be a “storm in a teacup” if it pushed impeachment efforts against Sara Duterte, saying that could distract from their lawmaking work.

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Protesters calling for the impeachment of Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte converge near the People Power Monument along Edsa in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Jan. 31, 2025. (Gerard Carreon/BenarNews)

Members of the Akbayan Party-List political group said at least 10,000 attended Friday’s protest rally near the People Power Monument in suburban Quezon City in northern Manila. A BenarNews correspondent who attended the protest figured the crowd size was about half the estimate.

By comparison, about 1 million people attended a Jan. 13 rally against Sara Duterte’s impeachment organized by the religious group Iglesia ni Cristo.

Reacting to Friday’s protests, an ally of the Dutertes said many Filipinos are still against the vice president’s impeachment.

“The rally at the People Power Monument … the primary purpose of which is to support the impeachment complaints against VP Sara … could only muster a measly police estimate of 4,000 attendees,” said Salvador Panelo, a former spokesman for the Rodrigo Duterte administration.


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Pusit in Tagalog is Squid
Feb 02, 2025 05:34 AM

They may be just a "measly police estimate of 4,000 attendees", but they're not a cult like the Iglesia Ni Cristo is who led the so-called "peace rally".