Vol. VII, No. 2 - January 31, 2025
Last February 5, a total of 215 lawmakers in the Philippine House of Representatives signed an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte. While congress ultimately voted to remove Duterte from office, it is worth noting that Marcos Jr. carefully stalled and navigated the impeachment proceedings, ensuring that his administration had secured the military’s loyalty and defused tensions to avoid alarming foreign investors, all under the watchful eye of his US imperialist backers. In the end however, it was not Marcos Jr.’s political calculus but the sheer force of the people’s outrage that made Duterte’s impeachment inevitable.
Prior to this, former President Rodrigo Duterte was convincingly exposed as enabler and participant in the heinous extra-judicial killings in his fake anti-drug war. A February 2024 poll survey showed that majority (59%) of Filipinos favor the country’s return to the International Criminal Court where Rodrigo Duterte is charged with crime against humanity. In 2019 then President Duterte announced that the country left the ICC. The impeachment complaint against Sara Duterte on the other hand was based on gross irregularities in disbursing P612.5 million of her confidential funds and later on refused to cooperate in the Congressional hearings.
With this latest development in congress, the Dutertes are indeed in their weakest moment so far. The impeachment of Sara Duterte is a major political blow to one of the country’s most notorious political dynasties, but the fight does not end here. While it is necessary to focus the strongest blow on the narrowest target—the Dutertes, who have built their power on brutality, corruption, and impunity—we must not lose sight of the fact that the Marcos Jr. administration is just as culpable. Marcos Jr. may have allowed Duterte’s impeachment to proceed for his own political survival, but his administration remains deeply complicit in the continued suffering of the Filipino people. His economic policies favor foreign investors and the elite while leaving workers and farmers struggling under worsening conditions.
Under US imperialist guidance, the Marcos Jr. government continues to bankroll military operations that wreak havoc in the countryside, targeting activists, peasants, and national minority communities in the name of “counterinsurgency.”
Marcos Jr. has also proven himself a loyal puppet of U.S. imperialism, deepening military ties through expanded bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and aligning the Philippines even further with Washington’s geopolitical interests. This subservience ensures that foreign corporations continue to plunder the country’s resources while the people are left with the burden of poverty, landlessness, and displacement.
The Duterte clique may have been momentarily weakened, but the broader system of oppression and imperialist domination remains intact. The Filipino people must remain vigilant—not only in holding the Dutertes accountable but in ensuring that Marcos Jr. and his regime also face a reckoning. The Filipino people rightfully welcome the impeachment of Sara Duterte as an initial step toward holding her accountable for corruption and removing her from office. However, the impeachment conveniently coincided with the senate’s adjournment, delaying the next stage of the process. This only reinforces the need for sustained and intensified mass actions to ensure that the Senate convenes without delay, and that the the impeachment court proceeds with Duterte’s trial immediately. The people’s vigilance and collective strength remain crucial in seeing this fight for justice unfold through to the end.