DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/17 March)–Vice President Sara Z. Duterte said the two impeachment complaints filed against her lack ultimate facts to substantiate allegations of impeachable offenses and said the proceedings violate her right to due process.
In her 13-page Answer Ad Cautelam filed on Monday, Duterte argued that there was a denial of her right to due process when the House Committee on Justice employed “double standards” in handling the impeachment complaints against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and herself.
The House Committee on Justice 4 March 2026 had found the two impeachment complaints filed against her “sufficient in form and substance.”
Duterte alleged that the Committee dismissed the impeachment complaints against Marcos on February 9 based on “extraneous considerations that are irrelevant in determining the sufficiency of the factual allegations,” but said that the same standards were not applied to the complaints filed against her.
“By treating the allegations against the Vice President as established truth even before trial begins, this Committee has prematurely evaluated the evidentiary weight of supposed materials that have yet to be introduced before the impeachment court,” she added.
Two impeachment complaints were filed on February 2, while the third and fourth were lodged on February 9 and February 18, respectively. The Committee set initial deliberations for the complaints on March 2 and 4.
Before the initial deliberations began, one of the impeachment complaints was withdrawn by the complainant, Francis Joseph Aquino Dee. On March 4, the Committee found two of the remaining three impeachment complaints sufficient in form and substance and asked Duterte to file her answer.
On Tuesday, the complainants in the impeachment complaints filed a two-page waiver of their right to file a reply to Duterte’s non-answer.
“Despite the gravity of the accusations against her, and the unmistakable public character of the funds she is charged with misappropriating, respondent (Duterte) ultimately said nothing to defend herself,” the complainants said.
According to the complainants, Duterte had failed to explain to the Filipino people how she was able to spend P125 million in 11 days, as well as account for the total amount of P612.5 million entrusted to her by the public.
The Vice President argued that the impeachment complaints cited a case before the Commission on Audit (COA) involving a notice of disallowance on her confidential funds, but she maintained that the matter is subject to an appeal, which remains “pending and unresolved.”
“This Committee then did not extend the same consideration to said Petition filed with COA, and disregarded the absence of any court decision declaring the Vice President guilty of unlawful or unconstitutional acts, as it did with respect to impeachment complaints against the President,” she said.
Duterte also questioned the Committee’s admission of the affidavit of detained witness Ramil Lagunoy Madriaga as “gospel truth.”
Madriaga alleged that the Vice President “conspired with certain individuals to distribute money,” an allegation Duterte said is unauthenticated.
Duterte maintained that the two impeachment complaints failed to allege the essential or ultimate facts necessary to sustain the charges and merely presented “bare conclusions of fact and law, heavily laden with self-serving conjectures, logical fallacies, and speculative claims, none of which can substitute for the clear and specific statement of ultimate facts required to support an impeachment complaint.”
The Vice President said alleged violations “fall short of the gravity required to amount to a betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption and/or bribery, culpable violation of the Constitution, or crimes, and likewise include the supposed offenses allegedly committed before the assumption” of Duterte as Vice President.
She said the impeachment complaints, which accuse her of crimes such as plunder through malversation, malversation, graft and corruption, and technical malversation in relation to the alleged misuse of confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, “remain mere conclusions” as they “do not rest on any established facts or final findings of a competent tribunal or court.”
She said the impeachment complaints did not allege how Duterte “amassed ill-gotten wealth in the first place,” while accusations that she committed malversation did not have any basis.
Duterte also questioned the use of allegations of a “threat to kill” against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., first lady Marie Louise “Liza” Cacho Araneta Marcos, and former Speaker Martin Romualdez as the basis for the complaints, saying such claims cannot be sustained by “exaggeration and inference alone.” (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)
