MANILA: Philippine Catholic priests filed an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte on Thursday (Dec 19), the third bid to oust her following an explosive feud with President Ferdinand Marcos.
The 46-year-old was tipped to succeed her father Rodrigo Duterte in the 2022 elections but stepped aside to back Marcos, and later ran for vice president on his ticket.
But ahead of mid-term polls next year their alliance has publicly imploded. Last month, she delivered an expletive-laden news conference saying she had ordered someone to kill Marcos if she herself was slain.
She later denied making a death threat, describing her comments as an expression of “consternation” with the Marcos administration’s failures.
Two impeachment complaints have already been made to parliament by separate coalitions of activists. The third was lodged on Thursday by seven Manila-based Catholic priests.
It accused her of “anomalous disbursements” of millions of dollars as vice president and when she headed the education ministry – a role she quit in June – as well as plotting Marcos’ assassination.
“Impeachment is the necessary, ultimate line of defence against corruption at the highest rungs of officialdom,” it said.
“She cannot be vice president a minute longer.”
