PHILIPPINES PERSPECTIVE

Manila is living Sara Duterte's impeachment as a political earthquake whose aftershocks will last for years. Coverage from Philippine press — Inquirer, Rappler, Philippine Star — is remarkable in its density and precision, but also in a fragmentation that mirrors the extreme polarization of Philippine society on this subject.

The raw data: 257 votes for, 25 against, 9 abstentions in the House of Representatives. The constitutional threshold of one-third of members (106 votes) was exceeded by a spectacular margin — 42 votes beyond the most ambitious projection made the previous week. The Marcos-aligned supermajority held ranks despite an intensive pressure and disinformation campaign from the Duterte camp (threats against lawmakers, troll financing, according to Rep. Joel Chua).

Philippine press documents the charges with precision: diversion of 500 million pesos in confidential funds from the vice presidency and 112.5 million from the Education department; unexplained wealth with suspicious bank transactions of more than 6.77 billion pesos according to the AMLC; corruption through gifts to DepEd officials; and the most striking accusation — having hired an assassin to kill President Marcos, his wife and his cousin, during a late-night press conference in 2024 where Sara claimed she had engaged a hitman in case she was killed first.

Inquirer and Rappler also document the 'Senate coup': minutes before the House vote, 13 senators overturned Senate President Vicente Sotto III to elect Alan Peter Cayetano — a longtime Duterte ally — as replacement. This institutional coup, whose presumed objective is to delay or block the Senate trial, immediately alarmed the Catholic bishops (CBCP) who called on the Senate to honor its constitutional obligations.

A rare voice in coverage is Rep. Elijah San Fernando (Kamanggagawa), who voted for impeachment but acknowledged his 'strong reservations' about a process he considers 'politically motivated' — while affirming that Sara still had to answer the accusations. This double vote — yes to the process, despite doubts about its purity — reveals internal tensions within the majority camp.