The next time Vice President Sara Duterte wants to leave the country, the Office of the President will not be her only stop. A Quezon City court now holds a say over her movements, a direct result of the criminal case that put her behind a bail bond earlier this month.
That leverage flows from three counts of grave threats lodged against her before Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 98. Because she is an accused who has posted bail, standard criminal procedure requires the trial court’s permission before any foreign departure — a restriction that applies to any defendant awaiting trial, regardless of rank. It sits on top of the travel authority the Palace has long required for her overseas trips as a sitting official.
The charges trace back to an online press conference on November 23, 2024, when Duterte told her audience she had arranged for someone to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Martin Romualdez, then the House speaker, if she herself were killed. The Department of Justice filed the counts in early August, invoking Article 282 of the Revised Penal Code in relation to the Cybercrime Prevention Act.
On September 4, 2026, Judge Maria Angelica de Ramos of Branch 98 found probable cause to try Duterte and ordered her arrest, setting bail at P120,000 for each of the three counts. The court turned down her bid to defer or scrap the warrant. The DOJ, through spokesperson Polo Martinez, said it accepted the ruling and stood by the rule of law.
Duterte surrendered the following day. According to her counsel, Paul Lawrence Lim, she went through booking at the courthouse — fingerprints taken, a photo submitted in place of a formal mugshot — and put up the required bail, after which the court lifted the warrant. Her lawyers characterized the exercise as routine, pursued without conceding the jurisdictional objections they intend to press.
Duterte’s defense rests on the argument that a sitting impeachable official enjoys limited procedural immunity and cannot be criminally prosecuted while in office. On September 10, her legal team escalated that position, filing a 28-page petition asking the Supreme Court for a temporary restraining order against the proceedings and to void the DOJ resolution that produced the charges. “Regardless of the question on jurisdiction, she has no intention of evading the law and will continue to exercise all her legal remedies,” Lim said.
The stakes reach well past the courtroom calendar. A conviction on the grave threats counts, layered onto the impeachment trial already running before the Senate, could bar Duterte from public office and foreclose a presidential run in 2028, the year Marcos vacates the post under the single-term limit.
