The Philippine House of Representatives has voted to impeach Vice-President Sara Duterte for a second time, advancing the case to a Senate trial that could disqualify her from public office and derail her plan to contest the 2028 presidential election.

257 of the 290 lawmakers present voted to impeach, well above the one-third threshold required to send the case to trial, Ada Derana reported citing BBC. The case stems from alleged misuse of public funds and public threats made by Duterte against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, and his cousin Martin Romualdez, the former House Speaker who led the inquiry into her office.

Duterte was impeached on the same grounds in 2025, but the Supreme Court blocked the prosecution on a technicality before the Senate trial could begin. The case was revived this year after a House committee ruled there were sufficient grounds to proceed. Duterte declined to appear before the committee, describing the proceedings as politically motivated.

She called the latest case “nothing more than a scrap of paper” in a written response. Her defence counsel said after Monday’s vote that “the burden now rests on the accusers to substantiate their claims” under the law.

Monday’s tally was widely read as a measure of Marcos’ grip on the lower house. A Senate conviction is less certain — the 24-member chamber is elected nationally rather than by district, and Duterte-aligned senators outperformed Marcos’s slate in the 2025 mid-term vote. A conviction would bar Duterte from holding public office.

Duterte announced her presidential bid in February, ahead of the 2028 contest in which Marcos is barred from re-election by the constitution’s single six-year term limit. She holds a 17-point lead over her nearest rival in a March survey by Manila pollster WR Numero.

The Duterte-Marcos alliance that delivered both candidates a landslide victory in 2022 has since collapsed. Marcos’ allies began investigating Duterte’s office in 2024, and in March 2025 Marcos allowed the International Criminal Court to arrest her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, who now awaits trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity over killings during his “war on drugs.”

Sources: Ada Derana / BBC — Philippine VP Sara Duterte impeached for a second time.