Longer impeach process vs VP Sara seen

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February 5, 2026 | 12:00am

MANILA, Philippines —  Unlike in the case of President Marcos, the new impeachment complaints filed against Vice President Sara Duterte will undergo a lengthy process and eventually hurdle the House committee on justice, a member of the House minority believes.

In an interview with “Storycon” on One News yesterday, Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice projected that the impeachment complaints against Duterte will be declared sufficient in form and in substance.

“I think this will be discussed at length. They will declare that there is sufficiency in form and substance,” Erice said.

The committee on justice, he said, may hold several hearings wherein the allegations against the Vice President will be thoroughly discussed.

While he expects the committee to vote in favor of impeaching Duterte for the second time, Erice said the situation is not clear at the plenary level.

Given the political situation, especially with the 2028 elections on the horizon, he said lawmakers may have to gauge public opinion before voting one way or the other.

“The political calculation will also depend on how the Vice President responds (to the allegations)… If the evidence is strong, I think public opinion will turn against her,” he explained.

Under the Supreme Court decision that declared Duterte’s first impeachment as void, the House of Representatives is now mandated to give the respondent the chance to respond to the allegations.

This may result in committee-level hearings that would be similar to preliminary investigations in the judicial system, Erice confirmed.

The House has yet to revise its rules to accommodate matters discussed in the SC decision.

Denial

Vice President Duterte’s camp maintained that she did not have any transaction with self-confessed bagman Ramil Madriaga, after his testimony alleging drug syndicates and Philippine offshore gaming operators bankrolled her May 2022 campaign was included in a new impeachment case filed by a civil society group.

In an interview with radio dzBB on Tuesday, lawyer Michael Poa reiterated that the Vice President does not know Madriaga.

“She doesn’t know him, that’s why, we’ll start there, but again I will reserve the other defenses that we have at the appropriate time because we don’t want to preempt our actions against the allegations against her,” Poa said.

Madriaga, currently detained at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig, had claimed that Duterte “instructed” him to deliver large sums of money, apparently derived from dubious sources, to her trusted security aide.

“For us, we have also prepared for that… For now, I cannot give you concrete details because of course, we do not want to telegraph our defenses…but I just want to assure the supporters of our Vice President that we are ready to refute and answer the allegations in that affidavit,” Poa added.

Tindig Pilipinas, led by its co-convenor Kiko Aquino Dee, filed the second impeachment complaint against Duterte on Monday.

Poa said that he did not discuss with Duterte whether the impeachment complaint has the support of lawmakers.