MANILA: An alliance of civil society groups in the Philippines filed an impeachment complaint on Monday against Vice President Sara Duterte, on grounds of grave misconduct and constitutional violations.
\nThe daughter of firebrand former President Rodrigo Duterte has been embroiled in a bitter row with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and is the subject of an enquiry into her spending by the House of Representatives. She denies wrongdoing.
\nMonday\u2019s complainants included civil society and religious leaders, as well as former government officials critical of her father.
\n\u201cThe Vice President has reduced public office to a platform for violent rhetoric, personal enrichment, elitist entitlement and a shield for impunity,\u201d Teresita Quintos Deles, one of the complainants, said in a statement.
\nA representative of the Akbayan opposition party endorsed the complaint in the Philippine House of Representatives.
\nDuterte\u2019s office said requests for comment had been relayed to the vice president.
\nThe impeachment bid is the latest twist in a high-profile row among three of the Philippines\u2019 highest office-holders, after the collapse of a powerful alliance between their families led to Marcos\u2019 landslide win in the 2022 election.
\n\u201cThis impeachment is not just a legal battle but a moral crusade to restore dignity and decency to public service,\u201d said Leila de Lima, a spokesperson for the complainants and a staunch critic of an anti-narcotics campaign run by Duterte\u2019s father.
\nThe complaint accused Duterte of violating the Philippine constitution by refusing to attend hearings on her budget which violated the system of checks and balances, and graft, both as vice president\u2019s office and when she was the education minister.
\nIt also accused her of gross incompetence and dereliction of duty.
\nSara Duterte recently said she had contracted someone to kill Marcos, his wife and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president\u2019s cousin, if she herself were to be killed. Later she said the remarks had been taken out of context.
\nOn Friday, in remarks that drew criticism from some lawmakers, Marcos said any impeachment complaint against his estranged vice president would only distract Congress and not help people.
\nThe Philippines\u2019 lower chamber of congress is dominated by allies of Marcos, which could allow her impeachment to go through the lower chamber before an impeachment trial in the Senate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MANILA: An alliance of civil society groups in the Philippines filed an impeachment complaint on Monday against Vice President Sara Duterte, on grounds of grave misconduct and constitutional violations. The daughter of firebrand former President Rodrigo Duterte has been embroiled in a bitter row with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and is the subject of an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n