Philippines: On the significance of the impeachment of Sara Duterte

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following February 5 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.

By the strength of 215 votes, the Marcos-dominated House of Representatives today impeached Vice Pres. Sara Duterte, setting the stage for a trial before the Philippine Senate.

The vote came after more than two months since the first of several impeachment complaints were filed. Marcos had publicly opposed these complaints for being useless and untimely, fearing that this would ignite a bigger political crisis while the ruling system is rocked by a deep-seated economic crisis.

The impeachment comes amid growing clamor of broad democratic sectors to hold Duterte accountable for corruption over the anomalous use of hundreds of millions of “confidential and intelligence funds,” as well as her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, for crimes against humanity. It is a victory for the democratic mass movement, whose protests over the past weeks added to mounting pressure on Marcos and the House of Representatives to push the impeachment.

The impeachment of Sara Duterte marks a significant escalation of the conflicts between the Marcos and Duterte cliques. It further exposes the deep divisions within ruling reactionary classes, where rival factions and cliques jostle against each other over spoils of bureaucrat capitalist privilege and power.

The move follows efforts of the Marcos regime to consolidate political power, especially within the military, police and defense establishment, through “loyalty checks” and the reorganization of the National Security Council. Marcos further secured the support of the US imperialists by further heightening anti-Chinese propaganda and collaborating with the US government and military in naval operations in the West Philippine Sea, under the guise of “defending Philippine sovereignty.”

The Filipino people welcome the impeachment of Sara Duterte as the first step to hold the vice president accountable and remove her from office by way of meting out justice for her crimes of corruption. However, the impeachment was secured and transmitted to the Senate just as congress was set to adjourn its sessions. As such, the people must further intensify and expand their mass actions to compel the Senate to convene promptly as the impeachment court and see the trial of Sara Duterte commence at once.

The impeachment of Sara Duterte also serves to heighten the urgency of the people’s demand for the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte and trial before the International Criminal Court, where he is facing charges for having ordered the wave of killings under his sham “war on drugs” and brutal counterinsurgency campaign.

The impeachment, furthermore, emboldens the Filipino people to hold Marcos himself accountable for even bigger crimes of corruption. The Filipino people are outraged by the even greater amounts of confidential and intelligence funds that Marcos has allotted to himself in the 2025 budget. In addition, they protest the ₱26-billion pork barrel fund under the guise of the AKAP “cash-assistance program,” the ₱500-billion Maharlika Investment Fund, the anomalous remittance to the national treasury of ₱60 billion Philhealth funds, the dismissal of ill-gotten wealth cases against the Marcos estate worth at least ₱202 billion and other anomalies.

The broad masses of the people are roused to heighten their protests against the Marcos regime, especially with Marcos and his officials using public money to satiate their desire for luxury and high living, while the Filipino people suffer from high prices, low wages, widespread unemployment and economic dispossession both in the cities and rural areas.

The worsening socioeconomic conditions of the Filipino people are rousing them to more vigorously resist the anti-people neoliberal policies and corruption of the Marcos regime and protest against the oppressive bureaucrat capitalist system, that serve to perpetuate the semicolonial and semifeudal system. Steady efforts to build and strengthen their organizations are bound to result in even greater protests in the coming future.

#International #Philippines #CPP