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With four senator-judges absent and Presiding Officer Escudero set to cast a vote, four retired Supreme Court justices will advise the impeachment court before its Sept. 23 ruling on the threshold needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte.
With four senator-judges unable to take part in Sara Duterte's impeachment trial, the Senate impeachment court will decide by Sept. 23 whether the 16-vote conviction threshold should still count absent members — a ruling that could reshape the case's outcome.
Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian and accounts committee chair Panfilo Lacson both said using public funds for a private caterer outside the chamber's accredited provider would be improper, closing out a request Duterte's office had defended on security grounds.
Former Senate President Franklin Drilon warned that any attempt to suppress evidence in Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial could trigger the kind of public backlash that toppled Joseph Estrada in 2001, as the Senate's pre-trial conference resumed June 22 with three of four articles still to be marked — and a sealed BIR box, COA disallowances, and P6.77 billion in flagged transactions among the documents awaiting examination.
Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, lawyer Manases Carpio, declared a combined net worth of P98.66 million for 2025 — an 11.46% increase — even as the Vice President again reported no cash on hand or in bank and the couple kept ten business entities undivested, two issues that figure directly in the impeachment articles now headed to trial.
The Senate impeachment court held its pre-trial conference for Vice President Sara Duterte on June 18, a day after the chamber resolved a five-week leadership war — with the majority eyeing Sen. Francis Escudero to preside and House prosecutors signaling that most of their witnesses will testify on the alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds.
Ten volunteer private lawyers, led by veteran litigator Lorna Kapunan, have joined the 11-member House prosecution panel for Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment trial, set to begin July 6. Prosecutors say Duterte's June 1 reply to the articles offered no rebuttal — only annexes and procedural arguments seeking dismissal — prompting Kapunan to quip that the "bloodbath" Duterte once promised has become a "bubble bath."
Duterte's camp submitted its formal response to the four Articles of Impeachment by the June 1 deadline but moved to dismiss the entire complaint on procedural grounds rather than contesting the substance — drawing fire from prosecutors and a pointed rebuke from Malacañang.
A risk assessment by GeoQuant, a unit of Fitch Solutions, says the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte have sharply raised social polarization and government risk in the Philippines — and that political violence is possible if she is barred from the 2028 presidential contest.
Vice President Sara Duterte's legal team submitted her formal response to the Senate impeachment court on June 1 — the court-imposed deadline — arguing the articles of impeachment are procedurally defective and substantively insufficient, and seeking their outright dismissal before the trial proper begins on July 6.
