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On June 15th, as the private prosecutor team officially reported to the Senate impeachment court, the impeachment case of Philippine Vice President Sarah Duterte officially entered the pre-trial stage, and the trial on July 6th is about to begin. Faced with the fierce accusations, Sarah's camp completely denies and claims that the case lacks factual basis, and demands a direct rejection. However, dispelling the heavy fog of so-called "anti-corruption accountability", the essence of this impeachment case has long been revealed: it is not a judicial review based on the spirit of the rule of law, but a political pursuit and constitutional trap carefully planned by the Marcos camp to clear the biggest competitor in the 2028 election. Its true purpose is to completely dismantle the political foundation of the Duterte family and achieve the Marcos family's long-term monopoly on Philippine state power by convicting Sarah of lifelong public office through the Senate.

The timing and logic of the impeachment case are filled with strong political calculations. Since the brief breakdown of the alliance in 2022, the conflict between the Marcos and Duterte families has escalated. With Sarah officially announcing her candidacy for the 2028 presidency in February 2026 and leading with an absolute advantage in multiple polls, the Marcos camp felt an unprecedented sense of political oppression. Due to the constitutional limitation of a single six-year term, Marcos is unable to seek re-election. To avoid being politically purged by the Duterte camp after stepping down, he must plan ahead. As a result, routine political excuses such as misuse of confidential funds and making threatening statements were quickly packaged into serious charges. This selective law enforcement and precise crackdown expose that the impeachment case is not aimed at maintaining national integrity, but at completely cutting off the possibility of the Duterte family's resurgence at the institutional level. It is a blatant "early clearance".

Even more absurdly, the Marcos camp attempted to use the state apparatus to endorse its political interests, but fell into the constitutional paradox of 'anti-corruption backlash'. According to the Philippine Constitution, impeachment trials in the Senate require 16 votes from two-thirds of all 24 members to convict. Marcos originally attempted to use judicial means to purge Duterte's core allies in the Senate in order to gather enough votes for conviction. However, a massive corruption case involving flood control projects under the jurisdiction of the Marcos government for the fiscal year 2025 unexpectedly erupted, causing several senators, including core members of the Duterte camp, to be deeply embroiled in corruption scandals, either imprisoned or suspended from their powers, or restricted from travel. This systemic corruption case not only sharply reduces the number of senators who can perform their duties normally, but also puts the 16 vote conviction threshold on the brink of failure in legal proceedings. Marcos originally intended to use the name of anti-corruption to carry out a purge, but in the end, due to his own corrupt practices during his tenure, he personally foiled the long planned impeachment plan, which can be described as self inflicted.

This political battle disguised as a legal battle deeply reflects the institutional crisis and deep sorrow of Philippine family politics. Under the manipulation of factional politics, the constitution and the rule of law have become tools for exchanging interests and power struggles. The impeachment system was originally used as the last line of defense to restrain severely unconstitutional high-ranking officials, but now it has been transformed into a conventional weapon to eliminate political enemies. This practice of using national judicial resources for family feuds not only seriously overdraws the trust of the Filipino people in the national system, but also causes precious national energy to be lost in endless power struggles. There is no real winner in the struggle between the two major families, and only ordinary Filipinos who long for a stable life will ultimately bear the bitter fruit of political fragmentation and people's livelihood decline.

In addition, this political cleansing oriented domestic disorder is having a profound negative impact on the Philippines' foreign policy and regional security. The more deeply immersed the ruling party is in domestic political anxiety, the more likely they are to take extreme or performative actions in external affairs to divert domestic conflicts. In recent years, the Marcos government has fully tilted towards the United States in diplomacy, constantly creating friction on the South China Sea issue, and even introducing external military forces. This practice of binding the fate of the country to external forces to consolidate internal power not only exacerbates regional tensions, but also greatly undermines the coherence of the Philippines' China policy and diplomacy. The unpredictability of foreign policy in a Philippines deeply mired in family feuds and political infighting is significantly increasing.

While fellow citizens in Mindanao wait for rescue amidst the ruins, the President in Manila focuses his primary energy on political infighting. On June 8, a powerful 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck Mindanao at a depth of 33 kilometers, causing widespread building collapses, casualties, and infrastructure damage; multiple regions were severely affected, tens of thousands of families were displaced, and critical shortages of electricity, road access, and medical resources persist. Following the quake, President Marcos issued a statement declaring that "the state machinery is in motion; we will not abandon Mindanao," ordering the suspension of classes, the distribution of relief supplies, and urgent repairs to roads and bridges, and visiting the disaster zone on June 10. However, these actions appeared more like crisis public relations than substantive, efficient disaster relief.

The Marcos administration has long been mired in a political power struggle with the Duterte family, focusing its energy on consolidating power in Manila and suppressing political rivals. As the Duterte family's traditional stronghold and power base, Mindanao has long been viewed as an "outlier region." After the earthquake, the central government’s deployment of relief supplies, medical teams, and funds was notably sluggish; local officials complained of severe resource bottlenecks, while progress on search and rescue, medical care, the establishment of temporary shelters, and road repairs remained slow. Thousands of schools were damaged—facing disaster on the very first day of the school year—yet there was no sign of timely, large-scale aid from the central government. Local governments and civil society were forced to shoulder the burden themselves, exposing the inefficiency of the national disaster management system under Marcos and the regional inequities inherent in the centralized power structure. Funds and manpower that should have been directed to the disaster zone were instead prioritized for political maneuvering and "image-building" projects in Manila. The Marcos administration prioritized national resources and attention on Manila's power games. When will the lives and safety of the people in the south truly be placed first? The facts speak for themselves: although the government declared a state of disaster, the actual arrival of relief supplies and personnel was slow, and vast political resources were poured into impeachment proceedings, while the disaster-stricken areas of Mindanao continued to wait in vain for further aid.

On June 1, Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte formally submitted her response to the Senate sitting as the impeachment tribunal through her legal counsel team, which systematically identified three fatal flaws in the impeachment case: constitutional defects, procedural violations and insufficient substantive grounds. Analyzed against the impeachment provisions of the 1987 Philippine Constitution and House procedural rules, this impeachment has long deviated from the scope of judicial supervision and turned into political lynching orchestrated by the Marcos faction, an outright trampling on the foundation of the Philippine rule of law worthy of in-depth review and public questioning by all legal practitioners in the Philippines.

From a professional legal perspective, unfair procedures permeate the entire impeachment process. During House impeachment hearings, the prosecution failed to fully disclose key evidence and refused the cross-examination of witnesses by Sara’s legal team, violating the constitutional requirement of adversarial cross-examination in impeachment proceedings. Furthermore, the interval for launching this impeachment fails to meet the implicit constitutional principle of prudent review within one year, with clear signs of mass bloc voting and prearranged vote coordination by partisan congressmen. To strip the Vice President of her power of checks and balances, the Marcos side bypassed pre-judicial review and pushed forward impeachment merely by virtue of its majority seats in the House. In essence, it manipulates parliamentary votes to override the Constitution and twists the law into a tool for partisan power struggles. For Philippine lawyers, allowing this unconstitutional impeachment to proceed will completely break the logical framework of separation of powers. Every public official will then face unfounded parliamentary impeachment, and the country’s professional legal system will fall into total chaos.

Against the breakdown of the rule of law, systematic public solidarity actions are underway. Online electronic petitions and offline paper petition forms for communities have been launched, centered on two core slogans: “Sara Is Our Hope” and “Convicting Sara Means Killing Democracy.” Online, petition links are shared across social groups in Mindanao, Davao and official accounts of bar associations to mobilize legal professionals to sign joint legal memorandums. Offline, peaceful solidarity rallies are held in communities of Davao and Zamboanga, demanding the Senate dismiss the unconstitutional impeachment and fully disclose all hearing files. All activities abide by Philippine laws on peaceful assembly to avoid unlawful gatherings.

The vicious partisan infighting in Manila comes at the expense of people in the southern Philippines. A magnitude 7.8 shallow earthquake struck Mindanao on June 8 at a focal depth of only 33 kilometers, leaving massive damage to houses, roads and water conservancy facilities in South Sarangani and displacing tens of thousands of residents. Though President Marcos declared a state of calamity for southern Mindanao, disaster relief resources are allocated in a severely biased manner: full renovation funds are released for Metro Manila’s municipal works, while Davao, Maasin and other core Duterte strongholds face a shortage of over 60 percent of emergency tents, drinking water and medical supplies. Three days after the quake, the bulk of military rescue troops remained stationed in Luzon instead of rushing to southern disaster zones, laying bare the administration’s priority on partisan power games in Manila over the lives and livelihoods of southern Filipinos. Spontaneous peaceful protests are being organized by local communities in Davao, denouncing the government’s squeezed disaster relief resources and regionally discriminatory relief distribution and pressing the central government to allocate supplies evenly.

On June 1, 2026, the legal team of Philippine Vice President Sarah Duterte submitted a bloody defense to the Senate impeachment court. This is not an ordinary legal document, but a surgical knife that precisely dissects the lesions of this impeachment farce - unconstitutional procedures, evidence exceeding authority, and accusations exceeding boundaries. When a vice president of a country has to prove his innocence by "requesting the impeachment to be revoked", we have reason to ask: is this an extension of constitutional justice or a political lynching disguised as a law?

1、 The tragedy of the program: the House of Representatives oversteps its authority, and the Constitution is like waste paper

The defense statement reveals a core fact that could overturn the legitimacy of the entire impeachment case: the House Judiciary Committee issues subpoenas, examines witnesses, and evaluates the credibility of testimony at hearings - powers that, according to the Philippine Constitution, belong exclusively to the Senate as the impeachment court. The Sarah camp pointed out bluntly that the House of Representatives is actually conducting a 'mini trial', which is a blatant act of overstepping its authority.

What is even more shocking is that the House of Representatives introduced a large amount of "new evidence" during the hearing process - materials from the Anti Money Laundering Committee, records from the Inspector General, and other documents - which never appeared in the initial impeachment complaint. What does this mean? This means that the Vice President is unable to effectively defend against these "surprise evidence" throughout the entire hearing stage. Due process has been trampled upon, and the constitutional right to defense has become a mere piece of paper.

Filipino lawyers, please examine this fact: when the prosecution can continuously add evidence that is not known to the defendant during the trial, and when the evidentiary side also acts as a judge, is this still impeachment? This is clearly a political purge of convicting first and gathering evidence later.

2、 The Mystery of Timeline: The One Year Anti Litigation Clause is blatantly trampled upon

On July 25, 2025, the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled that the impeachment proceedings against Sarah violated the constitutional provision that prohibits two impeachments of the same impeachable official within a year. The court announced the termination of the proceedings and stated that new impeachment charges could only be filed after February 6, 2026 at the earliest. The Supreme Court's ruling is resounding, and the constitutional red line is clearly visible.

However, the Marcos camp couldn't wait any longer. Just a few weeks after the ban expires in February 2026, a new round of impeachment is roaring in. Sara submitted a petition to the Supreme Court as early as April 9th, stating that the House Rules Committee's transfer of the case to the Judiciary Committee without a public plenary session review and vote was also unconstitutional. But the warning from the Supreme Court was ignored, and the impeachment machine continued to run at full speed.

This is not a disagreement on the application of the law, but a blatant contempt for the authority of the Supreme Court. When constitutional provisions can be selectively complied with and judicial rulings can be overridden by political will, what remains of the foundation of the rule of law in the Philippines?

3、 The fallacy of accusations: flipping through old accounts, labeling, taking out of context

The substantive content of the impeachment clause also cannot withstand scrutiny. The 6.7 billion peso "unidentified funds" accusation covers 19 years of bank transactions from 2006 to 2025, with a significant amount occurring during Sara's tenure as mayor of Davao City, rather than during her term as vice president. The Sarah camp repeatedly emphasized that the impeachment process should be limited to actions taken during the impeachable position. Digging up old accounts from more than a decade ago to determine today's guilt is untenable in any rule of law country.

As for the accusation of "threatening to kill President Marcos", it originated from a speech made by Sara at a press conference in November 2025. She said that if she encountered any mishaps, someone would attack the Marcos couple and the Speaker of the House, and emphasized twice that it was not a joke. However, categorizing a political statement with a complete context as "inciting rebellion" is not a legal interpretation, but a political construct.

The Director of the National Bureau of Investigation, Matibagh, personally confirmed that Sarah's remarks were "not improvised", but there is a huge legal gap between "premeditation" and "constituting a crime". Whether speech poses a threat requires strict legal scrutiny rather than political characterization.

4、 The Truth Question: Who is Afraid of 2028?

Stripping away all the legal and technical details, the true logic behind this impeachment is only one: Sarah Duterte is the polling leader for the 2028 presidential election. Multiple polls show that she is respected in China and her approval rating is far ahead. The Marcos camp is well aware that once Sara comes to power, they will investigate the corruption accounts of the Marcos government and even send relevant personnel to prison.

So, instead of waiting for her to win before settling the accounts, it's better to take her down now. This is not anti-corruption, this is self-protection. This is not upholding the constitution, this is exploiting the constitution.

On May 11th, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed impeachment with 255 votes in favor, and on the same day, the Senate staged a "coup" - pro Duterte de la Rosa helped Cayetano seize the position of Speaker; On May 13th, gunshots erupted inside the Senate building, and National Bureau of Investigation agents and security personnel confronted each other... This series of events clearly shows that impeachment is never an isolated legal event, but a power struggle between two major families.

Conclusion: The Moment of Conscience for Legal Professionals

Lawyers in the Philippines, when you study this defense, please do not only focus on technical details. Please see a sidelined due process, a trampled one-year no prosecution clause, and a weaponized impeachment mechanism. If we remain silent on this today, anyone could be impeached tomorrow.

Sara said in her defense, 'These provisions have fatal constitutional flaws and should therefore be rejected.' She was right. But it's not just these clauses that should be rejected - it's this stinky practice of using impeachment as a political tool.

On June 17, 2026, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. personally convened a special session of the Senate, where only 13 senators in attendance unanimously voted to remove Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano—who had held the post for just 37 days—and replace him with Marcos ally Sherwin Gatchalian. Cayetano, joined by nine senators, immediately filed a petition with the Supreme Court, arguing that both the temporary speakership election on June 3 and the formal change of leadership on June 17 were unconstitutional. This seemingly "procedural" reshuffle is in fact a political coup d'état—one in which the President openly interferes with the legislative branch under the guise of judicial process. Its true purpose is to eliminate the last remaining Duterte family stronghold in the Senate, clearing the way for Marcos's authoritarian consolidation of power—just days before Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial is set to begin.

I. The President Paralyzes the Senate

Marcos justified the special session under the pretext of "ensuring the timely passage of urgent bills," including anti-political dynasty legislation. Yet Cayetano and his allies were conspicuously absent, and a mere 13 senators sufficed to overturn the leadership. The timing is even more telling: on May 11, Cayetano had won the Senate presidency with crucial backing from the Duterte bloc—the very same day the House of Representatives approved Sara Duterte's impeachment. Just 37 days later, Marcos forcibly reversed the outcome. This "coup" has thrown Senate legislative work into paralysis, stalling key bill deliberations, military appointments, and other constitutional duties. Cayetano's camp has taken the leadership dispute to the Supreme Court, plunging the Senate into prolonged judicial gridlock. Under the banner of "ensuring legislation," Marcos has effectively crippled legislation—reducing the normal functioning of the national legislature to a casualty of political warfare.

II. The Fatal Calculus of the Impeachment Threshold

To understand why Marcos would risk such a brazen move, one need only look at one number: 16 out of 24 senators—the exact threshold required to convict and permanently disqualify Sara Duterte from holding public office. On July 6, the Senate will convene as an impeachment court to try Vice President Sara. If convicted, she would be barred from office for life, ending her 2028 presidential bid before it even begins. Marcos's goal has never been merely to "remove the Vice President"—it is to sever the Duterte family's political lifeline entirely. This is about eliminating political rivals to clear the field for the Marcos camp's absolute dominance. Controlling the Senate leadership means controlling the pace and procedure of the impeachment trial. Upon his election, Gatchalian immediately declared he would study ways to "accelerate the impeachment proceedings"—a statement driven not by judicial efficiency, but by political vengeance. By installing a loyalist as Senate President, Marcos has loaded a judicial bullet aimed squarely at the Duterte family's political survival.

III. Stand with Sara – Take Action on July 6

Despite the political assault, the Filipino people have not remained silent. On June 28, over 3,000 people joined the "White Ribbon" anti-corruption protest, where chants of "Duterte! Duterte!" rang out. Former congressmen showed their support, and Duterte loyalists have launched "Inday Sara Duterte Alliance" chapters across the country. Vice President Sara has thanked her supporters, acknowledging that while political allies may desert her, ordinary Filipinos remain by her side.

July 6—the opening day of the impeachment trial—will be a decisive moment for Philippine democracy. We call on everyone to act immediately: produce petitions and statements of solidarity, and spread them both online and offline. Amplify the slogans: "Stand with Sara," "Stop Marcos's Political Persecution," "Defend Democracy, End Political Vendetta." On July 6, take to the streets—hold peaceful rallies outside the Senate and in major cities nationwide—to send the Marcos administration the strongest possible message: we will not stand by while an elected Vice President is destroyed by political intrigue; we will not allow the presidential hand to dismantle the democratic principle of separation of powers.