On July 6, 2026, the Senate opened the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, placing one of the country’s strongest 2028 presidential contenders before a tribunal that could ultimately end her political career. I cannot look at the larger political picture without wondering whether accountability has crossed into something far more aggressive. To me, the campaign against Sara increasingly carries the disturbing appearance of political demolition conducted with the enormous machinery of the state.
I do not say this because Sara Duterte should be immune from investigation. No vice president, president, senator, governor, mayor, or barangay captain should carry an invisible shield against legitimate inquiry. The allegations against her are serious, including issues involving confidential funds, unexplained wealth, and her controversial remarks concerning President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and others; they deserve examination under law, not dismissal by applause from her supporters. But there is a difference between investigating an official and appearing determined to politically finish her. That distinction matters most. Justice normally asks: What happened, what does the evidence prove, and what does the law require? Political warfare asks a colder question: How do we make sure this person never reaches Malacañang?
That suspicion becomes difficult for me to ignore because the political stakes are written across the calendar in very large numbers: 2028. Sara Duterte publicly declared in February 2026 that she intends to run for president, and she has been regarded as a leading contender in polling and political analysis. A conviction in an impeachment proceeding can carry disqualification from future public office, which means the legal struggle inevitably has an electoral shadow hanging over it. This does not prove that every prosecutor, investigator, congressman, or government official involved is following instructions from one political command center. I would be dishonest to claim evidence that I do not possess. But politics is also read through patterns, timing, interests, and consequences. When the most formidable potential presidential rival spends the years before an election fighting for political survival, people will naturally ask whether the courtroom is being used to accomplish what the ballot box might not.
There is another reason the whole affair bothers me: the persistence of the machinery surrounding it. The first impeachment articles transmitted in 2025 were nullified by the Supreme Court, which ruled that constitutional restrictions governing impeachment had been violated; that ruling was later affirmed in January 2026. Yet new impeachment efforts followed once the constitutional one-year period had passed, eventually producing the present Senate trial. The impeachment court has since authorized subpoenas for bank, tax, and Anti-Money Laundering Council records as prosecutors pursue allegations concerning her finances. Those steps may have legal justification, and the Senate has a constitutional duty to hear properly brought charges. Still, from where I sit, the sheer concentration of political, investigative, legislative, and institutional pressure surrounding one woman gives the affair the smell of something larger than an ordinary accountability proceeding. Even perfectly lawful tools can become frightening when politics appears to be gripping every handle.
And here is where Philippine political history makes me particularly uneasy. Our politicians have long shown an astonishing ability to discover morality when their enemies are under investigation and suddenly misplace it when their friends are involved. The Constitution becomes a sword on Monday and a decorative wall hanging by Friday. That habit is precisely why I refuse to join either extreme. I will not declare Sara innocent merely because I dislike the forces arrayed against her, but neither will I accept the idea that filing cases, conducting investigations, or invoking constitutional procedures automatically proves that political motives are absent. The Supreme Court itself stressed in its earlier ruling that due process and fairness apply throughout impeachment proceedings. For me, that principle is more important than the surname of the accused. Once government power becomes selective, justice starts wearing a campaign shirt beneath its robe.
What worries me even more is what this political season may be planting for the future. Suppose Sara survives politically, reaches 2028, wins the presidency, and remembers every humiliation, investigation, speech, subpoena, and attempt to remove her. No one can truthfully say today that she will retaliate; that belongs to the future and would be speculation. But no student of human nature should be shocked if a leader emerging from years of political warfare feels the temptation to settle accounts. That is exactly why persecution—real or merely perceived—is poisonous to a republic. It produces not closure but inheritance. One administration investigates the previous camp; the next administration investigates the investigators; yesterday’s hunters become tomorrow’s quarry. Before long, Malacañang begins to resemble a revolving door attached to a courtroom.
Yet retaliation, should Sara ever become president, would not correct the wrong I fear is being committed against her. It would merely reverse the names on the folders. I would find it deeply disappointing if persecution today became the excuse for persecution tomorrow. A president, Sara Duterte, if that day ever comes, would have a far stronger answer available to her critics: govern well, open the books, prosecute wrongdoing through independent institutions, and resist the delicious but destructive temptation to turn state power upon old enemies. Revenge can be emotionally satisfying for an afternoon; good government has to survive six years. Political families come and go, but every weapon fashioned by one administration is conveniently left on the table for the next one. That should frighten Marcos loyalists and Duterte loyalists equally.
So, I return to the spectacle before us with more sadness than amusement. Sara Duterte must answer legitimate charges, and prosecutors must be allowed to present legitimate evidence; accountability is not persecution merely because the accused is powerful. But the government and its allies must also understand that accountability loses moral force when it appears selective, excessive, politically synchronized, or conveniently capable of eliminating a major electoral rival. The safest road is neither immunity for Sara nor an institutional stampede against her, but transparent proceedings, strict due process, equal standards, independent judgment, and enough political restraint to let Filipinos—not political machinery—decide whom they want in 2028. Otherwise, the country may discover too late that in trying to bury one political enemy, its leaders have merely planted the seeds of the next political war.
