By Karen Lema and Mikhail Flores
MANILA (Reuters) -Philippine senators were preparing to be sworn in as jurors in Wednesday’s impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, who faces a lifetime political ban if convicted of high crimes and betraying the public trust.
The trial could be a pivotal moment in Philippine politics by not only making or breaking Duterte, but also carrying big implications for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his agenda for the remaining three years of his presidency and beyond.
A likely contender to be the next president, Duterte, 47, was impeached in February by the lower house of Congress.
She denies all the accusations, from budget anomalies to amassing unusual wealth and threatening the lives of Marcos, his wife, and the house speaker.
“We stand ready to confront the charges and expose the baselessness of the accusations,” her office said in a statement on Tuesday.
The speaker of the Senate will be the presiding officer at her trial, with its other 22 members as jurors. A two-thirds majority is required to convict Duterte, which would kill off her hopes of running for president in 2028.
The trial of the popular daughter of firebrand former President Rodrigo Duterte follows an acrimonious falling-out with former ally Marcos, who ran on a joint ticket that won the 2022 election in a landslide.
Marcos is limited to a single term in office and is expected to try to retain future influence by grooming a successor capable of fending off Duterte in the next election if she is acquitted.
The president has distanced himself from the impeachment process, even though it was launched by his legislative allies.
The trial comes after a stronger-than-expected showing for Duterte’s allies in last month’s midterm elections.
That demonstrated her enduring influence, despite the battle with Marcos and the arrest and handover to the International Criminal Court of her father in March over thousands of killings in a “war on drugs” he waged as president from 2016 to 2022.
‘WEAPONISED PROCESS’
Sara Duterte is the fifth top official in the Philippines to be impeached, only one of whom, Renato Corona, a former chief justice of the supreme court, was convicted.
The trial of former President Joseph Estrada was aborted in 2001 after some prosecutors walked out, while the resignations of two officials, an election commission chairman and an ombudsman, followed their impeachments.
The start of Duterte’s trial comes just three days after the end of the final session of the current Senate, with 12 new members set to join when the chamber next gathers in July.
Duterte had asked the Supreme Court to nullify the impeachment complaint against her as being politically motivated. The court ordered Congress to respond.
“The impeachment process must never be weaponised to harass, silence, or eliminate political opponents,” her office said in Tuesday’s statement. “It is a constitutional mechanism, not a political tool.”
(Reporting by Karen Lema and Mikhail Flores; Editing by Martin Petty and Clarence Fernandez)
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