House panel finds impeach raps vs Sara Duterte sufficient in substance

The House committee on justice on Wednesday found the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte sufficient in substance. 

The impeachment complaints were filed by Fr. Bong Saballa, among others, and that of lawyer Nathaniel Cabrera.

Both the Saballa and Cabrera complaints gathered 54 yes votes, one no vote, and zero abstention. It was Quezon City Rep. Bong Suntay who registered the negative vote.

The impeachment complaints mainly accuse the Vice President of betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, among others, over the alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential fund, and threatening to kill President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and his family.

As a result, the Vice President was ordered to file her answer to the impeachment complaints within 10 calendar days.

TIMELINE: Impeachment proceedings vs. Vice President Sara Duterte

Ahead of the voting, House Senior Deputy Speaker Ferdinand Hernandez of South Cotabato said finding the impeachment complaints against the Vice President sufficient in substance does not decide on the guilt, or lack of it, of the Vice President.

“Our vote today is not a verdict of guilt nor an act of condemnation. It is simply a decision whether the constitutional process should move forward,” Hernandez said.

Also ahead of the vote, House justice panel chairperson Gerville Luistro of Batangas clarified that finding the impeachment complaint sufficient in substance is not tantamount to declaring the Vice President guilty of impeachable offenses.

“This is the stage where we ask: Do the allegations rise to the level of impeachable offenses? Do these complaints meet the constitutional threshold to move forward? And [more] importantly, are the allegations credible enough to justify moving forward with the process?” Luistro said.

“At this stage, we are not determining guilt,” she added.

House good government and public accountability panel chairperson Joel Chua of Manila, for his part, said the impeachment complaints against the Vice President "certainly met the standards for sufficiency in substance because threatening to kill the President is a clear violation and culpable violation of the Constitution.”

“That is gross betrayal of public trust because our President is elected by the public to lead us," he added.

In response, the Vice President’s camp said they will reserve their comment on the development pending further evaluation of the House proceedings.

“We have been informed of the vote of the House of Representatives finding the 3rd and 4th impeachment complaints sufficient in form and substance. At this stage, the Vice President’s legal team will carefully review the actions taken by the House and the Committee, as well as the records of the proceedings,” lawyer Michael Poa, Duterte's legal counsel, said in a statement.

“For now, we will refrain from discussing the substance of the case in the media and will instead address these matters through the proper constitutional processes,” Poa added.

But for the Vice President’s brother and Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte, the decision of the House justice panel was just politicking instead of being based on merits.

“While this development does not come as a surprise, it clearly exposes how certain forces in Congress are willing to weaponize impeachment for political ends rather than uphold fairness and justice. I commend [Quezon City] Rep. Bong Suntay for standing his ground and refusing to be intimidated or pressured into joining this political exercise,” Duterte said.

“To the 54 others who voted in favor of pushing these complaints forward, remember this: political power is temporary, but accountability to the Filipino people is permanent. You may have the numbers today, but history has a way of judging those who abuse their authority,” he added.

House Deputy Speaker Paolo Ortega V of La Union and House Senior Deputy Minority Leader Leila de Lima of ML party-list, however, said the merits of the impeachment complaints against the Vice President are solidly anchored on merits.

“We have the findings [of various agencies on lack of documentation on] confidential funds, and her admission to of a plot to assassinate the President, the First Lady, and the former Speaker of the House. Para sa akin, malakas na malakas [na ebidensiya]‘yun. Lalo na andiyan ‘yung video na nakita nating lahat. So that's a very strong evidence. That is definitely a ground for impeachment and falls under other high crimes [which is a ground for impeachment],” De Lima told reporters.

“That [threat] is also betrayal of public trust. And a high-ranking official cannot just threaten to kill the President and other public officials. Besides, the video was even authenticated by the NBI, and that is why grave threat and inciting to sedition complaints were filed against the Vice President,” De Lima, who endorsed the Saballa et al complaint, added.

Ortega, on the other hand, said the allegations against the Vice President have long been supported by documentation and other evidence dating back to 19th Congress.

He was referring to the results of the 2024 House good government and public accountability panel inquiry on the budget use of the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Education Department during Duterte's stint as Education secretary.

Investigation revealed that OVP and DepEd submitted acknowledgment receipts riddled with wrong dates, signatories with no birth records, unnamed signatories and non-readable names of signatories to liquidate the disbursed confidential fund to the Commission of Audit (COA). 

“These allegations have long been backed up way back in the 19th Congress even ahead of the impeachment efforts, so we had no doubts as to the substance of these impeachment complaints,” Ortega, one of the endorsers of the Cabrera complaint, told reporters in a separate interview.

Only two impeachment complaints against the Vice President are left since the second complaint was withdrawn by Tindig Pilipinas to support the third complaint with same allegations.

On the other hand, the first impeachment complaint was filed by former ACT Teachers party-list Rep. France Castro, among others, was set aside by the House justice panel for violating the one-year bar rule.

The Castro et. al complaint was filed on February 2, meaning it was not filed ahead of the lapse of the one-year bar on impeachment proceedings last February 6.

The House previously impeached the Vice President last February 5, 2025, but this impeachment case signed off on by more than one-third of the members of the House en route to a Senate impeachment trial was later declared illegal by the Supreme Court by ruling that it violated the one-year bar rule by initiating it and archiving the three prior impeachment complaints filed against the Vice President. —AOL, GMA Integrated News