Summary
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte has been impeached by the House of Representatives over allegations including plotting to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., corruption, and failure to confront China’s aggression in the South China Sea.
The move deepens political tensions between Duterte and Marcos, whose alliance collapsed after their 2022 election victory.
Duterte denies wrongdoing, calling the charges political persecution.
The Senate will now decide her fate.
Here is some context for those not familiar with Philippine politics (speaking as a Filipino):
- There was a bit of tension between the Marcos family and the Duterte family back then (I don’t remember exactly what sparked this, but Philippine politics is a complete fiesta).
- Current PH president, Bongbong Marcos, is the son of former president Ferdinand Marcos who, in 1972, declared Martial Law on the basis of a “communist threat” looming over the country. During this period Ferdinand Marcos committed a lot of human rights abuses, killing anyone who spoke against the government. He also stole a shit ton of money.
- Current PH vice president, Sara Duterte, is the daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte who also committed a lot of human rights abuses through his Drug War campaign.
- Despite tensions between these two families, Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte teamed up during the previous presidential elections and were running mates using the image of “unity” (they were called UniTeam) to unite Filipinos.
- Because the majority of the Philippine population is poor and uneducated, the two of them won the elections despite both familiy names being closely associated with authoritarian rule and human rights abuses.
Now some important details that have led up to this point:
- Sara Duterte had this whole “confidential funds” thing wherein taxpayer’s money was being spent on… confidential reasons. (-_-) and if it’s not clear to you yet, the Philippines has had a long problem of corruption. So she was brought to court several times for this reason (these were the impeachment cases).
- Sara Duterte pulled off several political stunts such as threatening to kill the president and whatnot which distracts from her confidential funds issue.
- Some political analysts say that this tension also has to do with the geopolitical differences of the two as the Marcos family were known to have support from the USA while the Duterte family was China’s dog (and before Lemmy starts siding with the Duterte because of their closeness with China, no - Duterte killed a lot of Filipino communists and vowed to kill any communist in sight).
Anyway, neither of these two people can be trusted. They both come from families who have had a long history of human rights abuses and corruption. The whole “plot to kill president” is just a tiny part of the larger issue and why she needs to be impeached (again, it really stems from the corruption allegations and she made things worse for her because Philippine politics is a fiesta). But let’s see how things play out from here.
TL;DR Philippine politics is a circus. The entire country is run by clowns.
The TLDR is really on point
Thank you for such a great explanation.
Thank you for taking the time to give us context.
A pox on both their houses.
She’s the daughter of former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, so my first impression is “shit apples” and all of that.
Relatedly, Marcos jr is the son of Marcos. Yes, the former dictator Marcos. I often think about the Philippines when I consider the state of the US. Good place to see the future in the present.
Some friends from Philippines told me Marcos family used a social media campaign for years depicting his father’s decades of dictatorship as some kind of utopia where everything was better. And a ton of people bought that over HARD FACTS. Marcos Sr. stole something like $20billion from Philippines (this was 80s dollars, not current value) so they had a lot of money to spend on this kind of social media engineering. Very scary.
It’s Duterte vs Marcos, so I can’t even decide who I distrust.
You don’t have to decide. You can’t trust either of them.
Yeah but in this case, one of them has to be lying more than the other.
omg that’s her face
I wish you to be repeatedly punched in the face until your bones are powdered lmao