MANILA, Philippines – The much-anticipated impeachment trial that will determine Vice President Sara Duterte’s political future begins on Monday, July 6, weeks after the Senate was thrown into chaos and mayhem by her staunchest allies.

The prosecution team will clash with defense lawyers in possibly months-long televised proceedings aimed at convincing senator-judges to convict Duterte for betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, and other high crimes.

If found guilty, Duterte will be removed from office and barred from seeking future government posts, quashing her hopes to be president in 2028 — a bid she announced in February this year, more than two years before election day.

Alleged offenses, first batch of witnesses

The case against the Vice President centers around four main allegations: that she misused confidential funds, amassed unexplained wealth, bribed government officials, and threatened the life of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and former House speaker Martin Romualdez.

Her kill threat will be the first impeachment article to be tackled by the prosecution team, which has already identified the first three personalities who will take the witness stand this week.

They are National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Regional Director Jeremy Lotoc, NBI Senior Agent John Mark Calilung, and Captain Belinda Bello, who is the executive director of the House of Representatives’ security bureau.

Bello was on duty when Duterte locked herself inside the office of her brother, Davao Representative Paolo Duterte, at the Batasang Pambansa complex in November 2024, after visiting her chief of staff Zuleika Lopez, who was detained by the House. The Vice President then held a Zoom press conference where she uttered the infamous threat against Marcos.

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During a House justice committee hearing in April, Calilung confirmed the authenticity of the video, while Lotoc testified that Duterte had indeed reached out to an assassin.

Calilung and Lotoc are among the 17 shared witnesses between the prosecution and defense teams. The prosecution had asked the impeachment court to compel Duterte’s camp to specify the purpose of “adopting” the prosecution’s list, amid concerns that the personalities will be treated as hostile witnesses.

The prosecution has a total of 57 witnesses, while the defense has 96.

Trial days are from Monday to Wednesday at 2 pm beginning July 6 to 28, after which the schedule will shift to Tuesday to Thursday at 3 pm.

With 62 trial dates for the prosecution’s witnesses and 30 for the defense, the trial could last for at least 7 months, Senate Secretary Renato Bantug has said.

Unresolved issues

Monday’s reconvening of the impeachment court will give the prosecution and defense an opportunity to deliver their opening statements, and senator-judges the chance to address issues unresolved during the week-long pre-trial proceedings in June.

They include motions on the opening of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) box containing Vice President Duterte’s tax documents, and allowing private prosecutors to examine witnesses.

Duterte’s lawyers had agreed to open the BIR box but only in an executive session, and had opposed giving the prosecution’s private lawyers a chance to interrogate personalities taking the witness stand.

The prosecution’s private lawyers are expected to level the playing field in the court, as House lawmakers, who have limited recent courtroom exposure, will face a defense team composed of highly experienced litigators.

Senator-judges, conviction threshold

Another unresolved issue that is expected to cast a long shadow on the trial is the threshold to convict.

The traditional view is that 16 senators, or two-thirds of a 24-member Senate, are needed to secure a guilty verdict against an impeachable official, but the rising number of non-functioning senators has reignited debates on what the constitutional two-thirds threshold actually equates to.

Senator Jinggoy Estrada is in jail for plunder, while Senator Bato dela Rosa is hiding amid an active International Criminal Court warrant. Both are supporters of the Vice President.

Senator Rodante Marcoleta, another Duterte ally, is also expected to be arrested this week over the non-bailable plunder case filed against him before the Sandiganbayan last Friday, July 3. This development also casts uncertainty over whether Marcoleta will show up at the upper chamber and try to use it as refuge to avoid detention.

Some legal experts — and even personalities from the prosecution — have floated the possibility of reducing the conviction threshold to 14 or 15, even though Senate President and presiding officer Sherwin Gatchalian has maintained that 16 remains the magic number in the trial.

Getting 16 senators to convict the Vice President is a big ask given the highly divided Senate.

The Senate majority of Gatchalian is composed of only 13 members, and not every one of them is automatically in favor of conviction. On the other hand, many senators in the minority bloc — the two Cayetanos, two Villars, Bong Go, and the President’s brother Imee Marcos — have a strong relationship with at least one member of the Duterte clan and are much harder to sway.

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Duterte’s defense

It is unclear whether Duterte will personally show up at the trial, despite repeated dares by the prosecution team for her to do so.

Duterte is the only Philippine official to be impeached twice. She was first indicted by the House in 2025, but Senate shenanigans, as well as intervention by the Supreme Court, effectively killed a trial that was supposed to take place.

The House, afraid that the High Court would once again question the constitutionality of its effort to impeach the Vice President, took the long route earlier this year, sending the complaints against her to the justice committee for prolonged proceedings instead of taking a shortcut that had been flagged by magistrates.

Duterte has tapped a team of 16 lawyers to defend her in the trial, even as she has repeatedly questioned the jurisdiction of the House and the Senate over her impeachment.

Duterte has invoked freedom of expression among other arguments to defend her apparent threats to Marcos’ life, and has asked the impeachment court to junk the case against her.

The prosecution has insisted that the Senate cannot prematurely junk the case without proceeding to a full trial.

Impeachment history

The Philippines, after the restoration of democracy in 1986, has had a rich history of complaints being filed against impeachable public officials accused of corruption, but only two (excluding Sara’s first impeachment trial in 2025) went to trial in the Senate. (READ: How did previous impeachment cases end?)

If convicted, Duterte will follow in the footsteps of the late chief justice Renato Corona, who was removed from his post and barred from seeking future office after his trial in 2012.

She could also resign from office, a fate suffered by former president Joseph Estrada in 2001 when his impeachment trial was aborted by a military-backed civilian uprising known as the EDSA 2 People Power.

Prosecutors, however, have insisted that the trial should go on in the event that Duterte resigns to determine whether the penalty of disqualification from future office should be imposed on her.

Duterte remains the frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election, but the highly publicized trial will test the resilience of her popularity, especially if it is able to air all of her dirty laundry.

The President has distanced himself from the Vice President’s impeachment, but analysts say a Duterte comeback in Malacañang would pose a threat to the Marcos family’s political — and perhaps even physical — survival. The Dutertes blame the Marcos administration for the extradition of the family patriarch to The Hague, where he is detained on charges of crimes against humanity over his bloody drug war. – Rappler.com