The Senate Should Not Trifle With Sara Duterte’s Impeachment

It is not just the surveys—though 78 percent of Filipinos, according to recent polling, want Vice President Sara Duterte to respond to the allegations against her. It is not just the numbers. It is the unmistakable mood on the ground. Ask the public utility drivers navigating Manila’s daily gridlock. Ask the young professionals, the overworked call center agents, the public school teachers. These are the citizens who keep the republic going—and they are asking: will the Vice President be held accountable, or will she be shielded yet again by the very system meant to check her?

The answer, unfortunately, appears to be tilting toward the latter.

The signal coming from Senate President Chiz Escudero is troubling. Instead of allowing a full and transparent trial on the impeachment complaint against the Vice President—as mandated by Article XI of the Constitution—he has floated the idea of proceeding directly to a vote. No trial. No presentation of facts. No opportunity for the public to hear the truth. Just a decision, as if this were an internal caucus and not a matter of national integrity.

But the Constitution is crystal clear: the Senate shall “try and decide” all cases of impeachment. These two duties—to try, and to decide—are not mutually exclusive. One cannot be sacrificed for the other. To do so is not just a constitutional shortcut. It is a betrayal of the people’s right to know.

The allegations against Vice President Duterte are not trivial. They include the questionable handling of confidential and intelligence funds, her alleged involvement in her father’s bloody drug war, and most explosively, her reported threats to assassinate political rivals, including no less than the sitting President and his family.

In any functioning democracy, these would merit serious scrutiny—at the very least, a trial.

If the Vice President truly believes she has done no wrong, she should be the first to demand a public hearing. A trial offers the only legitimate venue for her to clear her name. Innocence is not proven by legal maneuvering or political arithmetic—it is proven in open court, before the Filipino people, who are the ultimate judges of public trust.

And yet, what we see instead is an apparent effort to fast-track the process, to dismiss the case before it even begins, as if impeachment were a mere inconvenience rather than a solemn constitutional duty.

This is not the accountability the electorate voted for in 2022. Filipino voters have grown more discerning. They want “recibos”—clear proof that their leaders remain faithful to their oath, not masters of circumvention. The days of blind obedience to surnames and dynasties are waning. Politicians would do well to recognize that the public today is not only watching—but remembering.

To deny the people a fair and open impeachment trial would not just be a political miscalculation. It would be a moral failure.

We have been here before. In 2001, the people took to the streets when they were denied the truth—when senators, voting along political lines, refused to open a crucial envelope that might have revealed deeper corruption. What followed was a constitutional crisis, and then a people power uprising.

We do not need another EDSA. But we do need our institutions to work.

If the Senate truly respects the Constitution, if it truly respects the public that put them in office, then it must allow the impeachment process to unfold as it was designed to: with a fair, transparent, and public trial.

Anything less would be a disservice not only to the Constitution—but to the Filipino people themselves.