Vice President Sara Duterte has drawn a firm line against the growing chatter that she might vacate her office while an impeachment case proceeds against her in the Senate, insisting she has no intention of walking away.
Her rebuttal came through a brief, undated clip circulated on the Padayon & Updates Facebook page. “Oh, never gonna happen. I will never resign because it would be like a betrayal to the 32.2 million people who voted for me,” she said, framing any departure as a breach of faith with her electorate.
She then turned the matter back toward Malacañang, telling those who want her out that the burden is theirs to carry. “If PBBM (President Bongbong Marcos) wants, he could try to do everything to remove me from office,” she said.
The Senate is hearing four impeachment articles that accuse the Vice President of mishandling public money, holding wealth she cannot account for, accepting bribes, and issuing grave threats — the latter tied to allegations that she menaced the lives of the President, the first lady, and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez. As part of the proceedings, the impeachment court has moved to obtain her banking records, tax filings, and documents held by the Anti-Money Laundering Council.
Whether a resignation could even halt the trial has become its own point of contention. House prosecutors have argued repeatedly that stepping down would not close the case. “If she resigns, for example, it will not absolve or even terminate the impeachment trial because the only way to terminate the impeachment trial is for the court to reach a decision,” prosecution spokesman and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong said, as reported by the Manila Times. Lead prosecutor Terry Ridon has stressed that conviction carries a penalty beyond removal — a lifetime ban from public office — which is why, in the panel’s reading, the proceedings would press on regardless.
Duterte spent the weekend abroad rallying overseas Filipino workers, appearing Saturday in London after an earlier stop in The Hague. There, she pressed a familiar grievance about a state that pushes its citizens to seek livelihoods elsewhere. “Why has it become normal for many Filipinos to dream of working abroad? This is wrong. Our own country should be able to provide them these opportunities,” she told the crowd.
Her camp continues to cast the impeachment as politically driven. Her brother, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, told party members over the weekend that the effort is aimed at derailing her 2028 presidential ambitions, arguing that opponents see removing her now as the only way to clear the field. Recent polling has kept her at the front of the presidential preference surveys, with Philstar citing a Pulse Asia finding that roughly half of respondents named her their choice — even as a separate Social Weather Stations study found that seven in ten Filipinos want her to answer the charges in court.
