Sara Duterte Pleads Not Guilty in Impeachment Case, Calls Complaint ‘Scrap of Paper’
Vice President Sara Duterte on Monday, June 23, entered a plea of not guilty in response to the impeachment case filed against her, seeking an outright dismissal of the trial and branding the complaint as legally hollow.
“There are no statements of ultimate facts in the fourth impeachment complaint… it is nothing more than a scrap of paper,” Duterte said in her official answer to the Senate impeachment court, a copy of which was obtained by Rappler.
The fourth impeachment complaint—filed on February 5—accuses Duterte of betrayal of public trust, culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, bribery, and other high crimes, including an alleged assassination plot against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., misuse of confidential funds, and involvement in extrajudicial killings.
Duterte, however, argued that no actual articles of impeachment are currently before the Senate, as the chamber returned them to the House of Representatives on June 10. The return was prompted by Senator Bato dela Rosa’s motion, citing constitutional issues with the complaint, including a possible violation of the one-year impeachment bar rule.
According to Duterte, the initial three complaints were filed as early as December 2024, and the February impeachment should have been barred. She claimed the delayed referral of earlier complaints to the Speaker’s office was a manipulative move to skirt the one-year limitation under the Constitution.
The Office of the Solicitor General, however, maintained in March that no constitutional violation occurred, as the three earlier complaints were never formally referred to the House justice committee.
Duterte further dismissed the accusations as speculative. She said that claims of her threatening the President during a November livestream were exaggerations unsupported by evidence, and that no final ruling has been made on the legality of her handling of confidential funds.
“Considering all the foregoing, the Vice President enters a plea of not guilty, without waiving any of her jurisdictional and other objections over the charges,” the filing reads.
She urged the impeachment court to first resolve her affirmative defenses and then dismiss the fourth complaint entirely.
With public attention mounting and political pressure rising, this case marks a historic moment: the first sitting Vice President to stand trial for impeachment under such explosive allegations—yet still asserting, in her words, “there is no case to try.”
