Impeachment complaint filed against Philippine Vice President Duterte following her threat to President

Impeachment complaint filed against VP Sara Duterte for death threats, corruption, and misuse of government funds.

An impeachment complaint was filed Monday (December 2, 2024) against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing a legal storm over a death threat she made against the President, the alleged misuse of government funds by her office and other criminal accusations.

The impeachment bid filed by several prominent opponents and activists in the House of Representatives accuses Ms. Duterte of violating the country’s Constitution, massive corruption and other “high crimes,” including the death threats she made against the President, his wife and the speaker of the House of Representatives.

The Vice President’s threats showed the “extent of respondent’s mental incapacity, her depravity and lack of mental fitness to continue holding the high office of vice president of the Philippines,” said a copy of the complaint seen by The Associated Press. “The same constitute not only betrayal of public trust but also a high crime which would warrant her immediate impeachment from office.”

Ms. Duterte, a 46-year-old lawyer, was also accused in the complaint of having unexplained wealth and of allowing extra-judicial killings of drug suspects begun by her father, a former mayor of southern Davao City, when she held that position in the past.

The Vice President’s legal troubles have unfolded with the backdrop of her increasingly bitter political feud with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his allies. She said in online news conference on Nov. 23 that she has contracted an assassin to kill Mr. Marcos, his wife and Speaker Martin Romualdez if she were killed, a threat she warned was not a joke.

She later said she was not threatening him but was expressing concern for her own safety.

The impeachment complaint will be scrutinized by the Philippine Congress, which is dominated by allies of Mr. Marcos and his cousin and key backer, Romualdez, who also has been politically at odds with the vice president.