The midterm elections may be over, but we should brace for partisan intrigues and politicking to intensify, ignoring the call of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to set politics aside and buckle down to work.
With Vice President Sara Duterte declaring that she “want[s] a bloodbath” in her impeachment trial scheduled to begin on July 30 and asking her older brother, reelected Davao City Rep. Paulo Duterte, to contest the speakership with Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez in the incoming 20th Congress that will convene on July 28, it means the fight for power between the erstwhile UniTeam partners is far from over.
The results of the May 12 polls gave the vice president’s camp more ammunition for the almost simultaneous battle in Congress — the speakership in the House of Representatives and impeachment in the Senate — to discredit the Marcos administration and eventually wrest power by 2028.
Marcos’ Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas senatorial slate managed to win only six of the 12 contested Senate seats, well below the nine predicted in preelection surveys. One of them, Camille Villar, attributes her victory to the endorsement of the vice president more than halfway through the 90-day campaign period.
Five candidates, including Villar, who were endorsed by Duterte made it to the Top 12, three of whom — Bong Go, Ronald Dela Rosa and Rodante Marcoleta were in the Top 6 — while Imee Marcos, the president’s older sister, managed to secure the 12th slot.
To convict the vice president, the Senate — sitting as an impeachment court — must have a two-thirds majority vote, or at least 16 out of 24 senators. A conviction would result in her removal from office and disqualification from holding future public positions. Cases will then be filed in court.
But based on their political leanings and previous statements, it is most likely that Sara Duterte will get at least 10 votes for an acquittal. She needs only nine votes to block her conviction.
Go, Dela Rosa and Marcoleta have publicly declared their support for the vice president. They all ran under the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), chaired by her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, who had a landslide win as Davao City mayor despite his detention at The Hague while awaiting trial on crimes against humanity charges before the International Criminal Court.
Although Marcos and Villar have not spoken about their stand on the VP’s impeachment, it would be ungrateful if they vote for an acquittal or abstention.
From among the 12 incumbent senators, the vice president can count on Robinhood Padilla to vote for her acquittal. Others likely to take her side are Mark Villar and Alan Peter Cayetano, who was the elder Duterte’s foreign secretary. Pia Cayetano, who ran under Marcos’ Alyansa, may either follow her brother’s lead or abstain from voting.
Half-brothers Jinggoy Estrada and JV Ejercito may also abstain or cast a “no” vote. Estrada earlier declared that the impeachment “will only sow divisiveness and distract us from the urgent issues we must collectively address.” Ejercito echoed that the impeachment, which he described as “more political than [a] legal” process, is “very divisive.”
In an interview last December, Ejercito said: “It’s hard to move forward if the top two officials are bickering because it does not give a good signal, especially in the international community, making it appear that there’s political instability in the country. We are already having a hard time inviting investors, and then there’s this political instability.”
In the contest for House speakership, Romualdez or another contender from the administration may still get the majority votes, based on the statement of Deputy Speaker David Suarez that about 86% of congressmen who signed the impeachment complaint against the vice president have been reelected. Should Paolo Duterte vie for speakership and lose, he could be the minority leader, if the chamber would follow the parliamentary tradition and House rules that the second placer automatically becomes the minority leader.
But in his first two terms in the House, Paolo was hardly seen participating actively in committees and plenary discussions. He became a hot topic in early 2024 over a scandalous P51 -billion allocation for his district in the last three years of his father’s presidency, broken down into P13.7 billion in 2020, P25 billion in 2021 and P13 billion in 2022. To this date, he has not substantially explained how the huge amount was spent.
Will the Dutertes take on the role of a real opposition now and succeed in weakening the Marcos administration?
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
