Voting results showed 255 of 317 lawmakers backed the impeachment complaint, comfortably surpassing the one-third threshold required under the Philippine constitution to elevate the case to the Senate.

Duterte faces allegations including misuse of public funds, accumulation of unexplained wealth and threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the first lady and a former House speaker. She has denied wrongdoing, while her legal team has described the complaint as defective and politically motivated.

If convicted in a Senate trial, Duterte would be removed from office and permanently barred from holding elected office, a penalty that could derail any attempt to seek the presidency in 2028.

The impeachment vote came minutes after the Senate elected longtime Duterte ally Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate president, replacing Vicente Sotto III in a 13-9 vote with two abstentions.Cayetano, who served as foreign secretary under former president Rodrigo Duterte, denied the leadership change was linked to the impeachment proceedings.

“I do not blame you if you’re saying that the change in leadership was due to the impeachment, it was not,” Cayetano told senators after the vote.Under Philippine law, the Senate acts as an impeachment court once charges are transmitted from the House.

A guilty verdict requires support from two-thirds of senators.The latest impeachment effort follows a failed attempt in June 2025, when the Senate convened an impeachment court in televised proceedings before returning the case to the House, a move critics described as a de facto dismissal.Political dynamics in the upper chamber have shifted since then.

Candidates aligned with Duterte performed strongly in the May 2025 midterm elections, winning five of 12 contested Senate seats and improving her chances of surviving a trial.Among senators present during Monday’s proceedings was Ronald dela Rosa, the former national police chief who played a central role in Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.

Dela Rosa had largely stayed out of public view since November last year.Dela Rosa and Senator Christopher Go are among current and former officials named by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court as alleged co-perpetrators in the crimes against humanity case linked to Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown.

Dennis Coronacion, chair of the political science department at University of Santo Tomas, said before the vote that Duterte’s acquittal remained a realistic possibility because of support from newly elected senators.“There are new senators who have been very vocal that they are supporting the vice president,” he told AFP.