By Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio, A reporter
PROCEEDINGS to impeach President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. advanced to the House Judiciary Committee after lawmakers found two impeachment petitions to be sufficient on Monday, the same day the panel received new impeachment charges against Vice-President (VP) Sara Duterte-Carpio.
Batangas lawyer Gerville R. Luistro, who chairs the panel, said the committee will next decide whether the complaints against Mr. Marcos are worthy and worthy of a full investigation.
“When we say the sufficiency of the form, it is only about procedures such as verification, wording and approval,” he said in a press conference after the committee hearing, noting that the documents were signed by all the plaintiffs, approved by Congress, sworn oaths and based on authentic government records.
“That’s all.”
The panel’s approval of both appeals could cause political heat for Mr. Marcos, his administration could not prevent the emergence of a growing fraud scandal involving under or lost flood control projects.
The complaints allege that the President benefited from meaningless government contracts and allowed corruption to grow through the use of congressional district budgeting, accusing Mr. Marcos for jumping, violating the constitution and betraying the public.
Mrs. Luistro said the House Judiciary Committee will examine whether the complaints, filed separately by the private attorney and activists, justify the requests that Mr. Marcos was removed from office and whether the allegations are unforgivable crimes.
“If we say something tangible, it must be based on the bad behavior of the officer who is intolerable, and it must be a crime that is the reason to charge him,” he said. “Repetition of facts should be a crime.”
The first complaint cites Mr. Marcos, who allegedly profited from this graft practice, bypassed domestic legal procedures by sending former President Rodrigo R. Duterte to The Hague, while making claims that an independent task force set up to investigate massive corruption was protecting his political allies.
The second complaint was filed shortly after the first was filed, amid speculation that the first charge was deliberately weak and was only intended to trigger a one-year trial in the trial against the same officer.
Members of the 39-man House Judiciary Committee will vote on impeachment complaints as a whole, not on individual grounds, Ms. Luistro said, meaning that one shortfall could lead to the dismissal of the entire case.
“It depends on the assessment, appreciation and decision of each member whether they will consider the whole complaint as a whole,” he said. “When we vote, we consider the complaint as one, not for a reason.”
Mrs. Luistro said that the complaints that present a compelling case for the impeachment of Mr. Marcos will be elevated to the hearings of the full committee to examine their merits, inviting the President, the complainants and their witnesses to be present.
Palace Press Officer Clarissa A. Castro said that the Palace respects the plan but always hopes that the President has not done anything wrong.
“Even before, the President already said that he knows that he has not done anything wrong, he has not broken the law and there is no crime that cannot be forgiven,” he said at a forum in the Philippines on Monday.
NO ‘REASONS TO BE BAD’
Meanwhile, two appeals for President Duterte’s removal from office have been filed before the committee, renewing efforts to remove him from office due to allegations of corruption after last year’s appeal was stalled when the Supreme Court suspended its proceedings.
The first complaint, filed by activists affiliated with the opposition, accused Ms. Duterte of misappropriating hundreds of millions of pesos in secret funds, ordering subordinates to falsify reports to cover up allegations of misappropriation, and repeatedly skipping congressional hearings on her office’s budget.
Mrs. Duterte is willing to answer the allegations, her spokesman Michael T. Poa said in a statement. He is confident that an impartial review will find that the allegations are “lacking both in fact and in law.”
“The people already know what happened in the past, and we will not give the second-highest official in the country an excuse to commit corruption,” former congresswoman Arlene D. Brosas told a news conference in Filipino after the complaint was filed in the House of Representatives.
These allegations are in line with the same allegations that were raised two years ago, when complaints that Mrs.
“The Constitution does not allow such neglect of public trust,” according to a copy of the complaint, alleging public dishonesty – one of the five constitutional grounds for impeachment, along with bribery, treason, links to corruption and willful violation of the Constitution.
It added that the Vice President treated public funds as a “personal war chest” while avoiding oversight of the law.
The complaint was endorsed by the party’s list attorneys Antonio L. Tinio, Sarah Jane Elago, and Renee Louise M. Co.
A second impeachment complaint was later filed by civil society groups and religious leaders, accusing Ms. Duterte of corruption, mysterious wealth, and public dishonesty.
“The impeachment complaint is not that different from the previous one,” said prosecutor Francis Joseph “Kiko” Aquino Dee, noting that the Supreme Court did not exonerate the Vice President on previous allegations.
Mrs. Duterte was impeached by the House last year after more than a third of lawmakers supported the fourth impeachment, which was sent directly to the Senate. He later won a Supreme Court decision that dismissed the trial, the Supreme Court said that the lawyers were violating the constitution by ignoring the previous complaints.
The court has stayed proceedings to impeach the Vice President until Feb. 6, although its latest ruling allowed new charges to be filed starting Jan. 15.
Renewed replacement efforts risk reopening the political conflict between the Duterte and Marcos camps, whose alliance in the 2022 elections has since been revealed.
Also on Monday, Deputy Speaker of the House and Iloilo Representative Lorenz R. Defensor said the court will revise its impeachment rules to comply with the Supreme Court ruling that distinguished between the calendar and the session date.
Session days generally refer to the days when the floor of the House is in session, while calendar days mark the regular days that pass in a congressional session.
The Supreme Court ruled that, for hearings, session days should be counted as regular calendar days.
“Our laws will be reviewed to clarify and clarify in accordance with the provisions and purpose of the Constitution,” said Mr. Defensor told reporters.
SHARING PUBLIC TRUST
The move to oust the country’s top executive comes as Mr Marcos’s trustworthiness dwindles in the last quarter of 2025, unlike his former colleague, Ms Duterte, who posted gains in both credibility and performance ratings, according to a nationwide survey by OCTA Research released on Monday.
The Tugon ng Masa poll, conducted from December 16 to 20, showed trust in Mr. Marcos dropped by 9 percentage points from the previous quarter to 48%, while 31% said they did not trust the President and 22% were doubtful.
His performance rating remained above the majority threshold but fell to 51% from the third quarter of 2025, with 27% dissatisfied and 22% unsure.
In contrast, Ms. Duterte recorded a massive 53% trust rating, up 2 percentage points quarter-on-quarter, while his job approval rose 5 percentage points to 54%.
The Vice President also posted lower unexplained responses than the President, indicating stronger public sentiment, the survey found. About 26% expressed no confidence in him, while 21% were undecided.
The regional data highlighted different trends, where Mr. Marcos and performance ratings dropped significantly in the National Capital Region and Balance Luzon, while Ms. Duterte registered strong gains in the capital and maintained strong trust in Mindanao, his family’s bailiff.
Among the social and economic groups, Mr. Marcos saw a sharp drop in support among high-income respondents, while Ms.
The survey covers 1,200 Filipino adults nationwide through face-to-face interviews and has a margin of error of ±3 percentage points.
OCTA Research said the poll was unauthorized and issued as a public service. – with Chloe Mari A. Hufana
