THE House of Representatives approved the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte on Wednesday, February 5, 2025, the last session day before a four-month break in relation to the upcoming national and local elections.
During the plenary session led by House Speaker Martin Romualdez, House Secretary General Reginald Velasco announced that 215 members of the House of Representatives, out of the total 306 lawmakers, signed the verified fourth impeachment complaint against Duterte.
This figure represents more than one-third of all House members, which, based on the Constitution, allows for the immediate convening of a Senate trial, bypassing discussions in the House committee on rules and the committee on judiciary.
A motion directing the House secretary-general to submit the impeachment complaint against the second highest government official of the country to the Senate was also approved.
The lower chamber elected the following members as prosecutors in the trial:
Batangas Second District Representative Gerville Luistro
Antipolo Second District Representative Romeo Acop
1-Rider Partylist Representative Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez
Manila Third District Representative Joel Chua
Ako Bicol Partylist Representative Raul Angelo Bongalon
General Santos City Representative Loreto Acharon
House Minority Leader 4Ps Partylist Representative Marcelino Libanan
Oriental Mindoro First District Representative Arnan Panaligan
San Juan City Representative Isabel Maria Zamora
Iloilo Third District Representative Lorenz Defensor
Bukidnon Second District Representative Jonathan Keith Flores
The House impeaches Duterte on the basis of betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the constitution, graft and corruption, malversation of public funds and other high crimes.
Among the grounds cited were irregularities in the use of public funds by the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education (DepEd) when Duterte served as its secretary from 2022 to 2024, her offensive remark against President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and Speaker Martin Romualdez, the alleged bribery of DepEd officials, her unexplained wealth, misdeclaration in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth, and her alleged involvement in extrajudicial killings.
The House committee on good government and public accountability earlier conducted an inquiry on the alleged misuse of public funds by the OVP and DepEd, particularly its intelligence and confidential funds.
During the probe, it was noted that of the OVP’s P125 million confidential fund in 2022, P16 million was spent as payment for safe houses.
The panel is scrutinizing the acknowledgment receipts submitted by the OVP and DepEd to the Commission on Audit (COA) to justify their spending.
It noted irregularities, particularly on the dates and signatories on the liquidation documents.
According to COA, the OVP and DepEd submitted 787 acknowledgement receipts with unnamed signatories while 302 have unreadable names of signatories in 2023.
One of the signatories in the majority of the acknowledgment receipts submitted by the OVP and DepEd was a certain Mary Grace Piattos, who, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority, has no record of a certificate of live birth (COLB), certificate of marriage (COM), or certificate of death (COD) in their database.
In November 2024, Duterte said in a virtual press conference, following the detention of her chief of staff amid the said probe, that she had already talked to someone to hunt down and kill the Marcoses and Romualdez in case she is killed.
In another press conference, Duterte said that she imagined cutting off Marcos' head at one point as she realized that their relationship was getting toxic. (TPM/SunStar Philippines)