THE House Committee on Justice agreed overwhelmingly on Wednesday to advance the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte, setting the stage for a potential vote that could decide her political future. The daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who in February announced a 2028 presidential bid, was impeached last year, only for the Supreme Court to toss the case out over procedural issues. Under the Constitution, an impeachment by the House of Representatives triggers a Senate trial, where a guilty verdict would ban Duterte from elected office for life. Two new complaints, ruled “sufficient in substance” by a vote of 54-1 on Wednesday, accuse her of graft and corruption while in office and of making a death threat against former ally President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. She will now have 10 days to respond before the start of a hearing of probable cause necessary to move the complaints to a House vote. “Our vote today is not a verdict of guilt nor an act of condemnation. It’s simply a decision on whether the constitutional process should move forward,” Rep. Ferdinand Hernandez said minutes before the vote. The vice president’s legal team said Wednesday they would not comment on specific allegations. “For now, we will refrain from discussing the substance of the case in the media and will instead address these matters through the proper constitutional processes,” lawyer Michael Poa said in a statement. The alleged death threat against Marcos stems from a late-night press briefing in which she claimed to have hired an assassin to kill the president and members of his family should he have her cut down first. Analysts have warned that Duterte’s presidential announcement will weigh heavily on lawmakers forced to gauge the repercussions of a vote against someone who may yet hold the country’s highest office. While she later said the comments were misinterpreted, lawmaker Gerville Luistro said Wednesday that the alleged threats could destabilize institutions. “They carry weight. They create fear,” she said. Duterte and Marcos have been engaged in a high-stakes political brawl that erupted within weeks of their 2022 win in the presidential election, when the vice president was denied her favored Cabinet portfolios and instead named education secretary. The justice committee last month tossed out a pair of impeachment complaints against Marcos, ruling that allegations of corruption over a scandal involving bogus flood control projects lacked substance. Although four complaints were endorsed to the committee, only two — one filed by priests and others, and the other filed by lawyer Nathaniel Cabrera — were found to be sufficient in both form and substance. Batangas 2nd District Rep. Gerville Luistro, the committee chairman, said in a press conference on Wednesday the complainant must be provided Duterte’s answer to the charges, then given three calendar days to respond. Thereafter, she will have another three calendar days to file her rejoinder. The panel, he said, would also be ready to accept submitted evidence. “When all this evidence and documents are gathered... and all these responsive pleadings are received, then that is the time for us to determine whether there is sufficient ground” to support the complaint, she said. “And if the decision of the justice committee is in the affirmative, that’s the only time that we will be proceeding to the hearing proper,” she said. Luistro said that if Duterte does not file an answer, it would be “considered as a denial of all the allegations” in the complaint, and the committee “will simply proceed to hearing these impeachment complaints.” In a press conference on Tuesday, Luistro said the hearing proper would be held after the Holy Week because they needed to provide time for responsive pleadings. While the actual hearing has yet to begin, Akbayan Rep. Percival Cendaña said “there will be more than the necessary number to impeach the VP.” “If the weight of the allegations and evidence is looked at, our Constitution is pointing toward only one recourse, there is only one logical action that Congress should take — impeach the vice president,” he said. Four impeachment complaints were filed last month against Duterte. The House committee set the first one filed aside, finding that it violated the rule against initiating impeachment proceedings against the same official more than once within a one-year period. The second one was withdrawn by the 17 people who filed it. The third impeachment complaint filed by priests and others alleged, among others, that Duterte committed culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayed public trust in connection with confidential funds allocated to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) for 2022 and 2023, and confidential funds allocated for 2023 to the Department of Education (DepEd) which Duterte led as secretary before she resigned in 2024 from that post. Meanwhile, Cabrera alleged that Duterte “betrayed the public trust and committed acts of graft and corruption by grossly abusing discretionary authority over confidential funds appropriated to the” OVP and DepEd. Duterte’s defense team said they will “carefully review” the decision of the House Justice Committee that the third and fourth impeachment complaints were “sufficient in substance.” “At this stage, the vice president’s legal team will carefully review the actions taken by the House and the Committee, as well as the records of the proceedings,” Poa, defense panel spokesman, said. Meanwhile, Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte said the development “did not come as a surprise” to him, and noted that it exposed how “certain forces in Congress are willing to weaponize impeachment for political ends rather than uphold fairness and justice.” He commended Quezon City Rep. Bong Suntay for being the lone vote against finding the complaints sufficient in substance. He also reminded the 54 others who voted in favor of pushing the complaint forward that “political power is temporary, but accountability to the Filipino people is permanent.” “You may have the numbers today, but history has a way of judging those who abuse their authority,” he added.