The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte is expected to take place after the country’s mid-term elections in May and could be decided by a new set of lawmakers, Senate President Francis Escudero said Thursday.
The decision on whether the trial will proceed during a special session when the current Senate reconvenes on June 2—or at a later date—rests with the 24 sitting senators, Escudero said in a press briefing.
Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives on Wednesday for “violation of the constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes.”
If convicted, she will be removed from office and permanently barred from holding public office.
Her Senate trial, however, “will likely extend into the 20th Congress. That’s almost a sure thing now,” Escudero told reporters.
He explained that even if the trial begins under the current Senate, it may be concluded by incoming legislators.
The impeachment case against Duterte includes allegations of financial fraud, an assassination plot against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and involvement in extrajudicial killings linked to the “drug war” in Davao.
House Deputy Majority Leader Lorenz Defensor also acknowledged that the trial “may cross over to the next Congress,” which will be determined by the May 12 elections, with new legislators assuming office in late July.
“We leave it up to the Senate as a separate body and as an impartial body to adjudicate … how they will proceed with the impeachment process,” Defensor said in a report by Agence France-Presse.
Duterte, who has yet to make a public statement on her impeachment, was initially seen as a frontrunner to succeed her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, in the 2022 presidential elections but instead backed Marcos and ran as his vice-presidential running mate.
However, tensions between the two have since escalated. In November, she made controversial remarks suggesting she had ordered someone to kill Marcos in the event of her own assassination.
She later denied that the statement was a threat, claiming it was an expression of “consternation” over the administration’s failures.
The allegations of an assassination threat were among the accusations in three impeachment complaints filed against Duterte in December.
She is also under investigation by the House regarding her use of public funds.
