Former senator Richard “Dick” Gordon has cast Vice President Sara Duterte as an official who behaves as though she is owed her standing in public life, tracing that posture to what he described as her assumption that voters would readily return her to office.
The onetime lawmaker made the assessment during an appearance on One PH’s “Sa Totoo Lang,” where the conversation turned to the machinery of impeachment and what it is meant to accomplish. According to Gordon, the process exists precisely to hold errant officials to account, no matter how high their position.
“The impeachment was done to make sure that a powerful person can be brought down to size,” he said.
That framing lands in the middle of a legal saga that has no precedent in the country. Duterte stands as the only vice president ever impeached by the House of Representatives, and the only one to face the process twice. Lawmakers voted 257 to 25 on May 11, 2026, to send her case to the Senate, clearing the constitutional threshold by a wide margin and setting up a trial that opened on July 6, 2026.
The charges reaching the upper chamber center on betrayal of public trust, a culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, and bribery. Much of the complaint concerns the handling of confidential and public funds tied to the Office of the Vice President and to the Department of Education, which Duterte led from 2022 to 2024. The articles also cite unexplained wealth and her recorded remark that she had arranged for an assassin to target President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and then-Speaker Martin Romualdez.
An earlier attempt to remove her collapsed before it could be tried. The Supreme Court in July 2025 declared the first set of articles unconstitutional, pointing to the one-year bar on impeachment complaints and to due process concerns, while stressing that the ruling did not clear Duterte of the underlying accusations.
Gordon’s read on the vice president’s mindset connects to her own political calculations. Duterte declared in February 2026 that she would seek the presidency in 2028, a race she would be barred from should the Senate convict her, since a two-thirds vote of the chamber would both strip her of the vice presidency and disqualify her from future office.
