Sara impeachment 2.0 bid in House stumbles after NUP signals no support

If the House’s second largest voting bloc retreats from the effort to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte again, is the campaign considered dead on arrival?

Not necessarily, but the National Unity Party’s hesitation offers a clearer glimpse of the increasingly steep terrain that impeachment advocates face to reach the finish line for a second time.

In a statement on Wednesday, February 25, the NUP said it is unlikely to support the latest impeachment drive against the Vice President.

“At this stage, the NUP has not seen the inclusion of new and material evidence that would warrant a departure from issues that have already been the subject of prior inquiries and extensive public hearings,” the party said.

“Unless compelling new evidence emerges during the course of these hearings that fundamentally alters the factual basis for the impeachment complaint, the NUP will most likely not vote in favor of the measure,” it added.

NUP’s stance on the matter is interesting, given that most of its members backed the impeachment effort against the Vice President in the 19th Congress. That push succeeded in the House, but her trial was aborted at the Senate after the Supreme Court intervened.

NUP’s statement comes a week after Duterte declared her candidacy for president in 2028, a move viewed by analysts as a way to gauge her allies in the legislative.

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The issues raised against Duterte in the new impeachment drive remain the same — her alleged misuse of confidential funds, her alleged bribery of education officials, her alleged unexplained wealth, and her apparent threats to the life of the President and his family, among others. The Vice President has offered blanket denials, but has not properly answered every allegation.

The NUP contingent in the House is led by Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno, who was not in the 19th Congress.

Other notable party members in the House include the Villafuertes, Ombudsman Boying Remulla’s son Ping of Cavite, and Iloilo’s Lorenz Defensor, the senior deputy of Majority Leader Sandro Marcos in the rules committee.

Manila’s Rolando Valeriano, who delivered the privilege speech that became the basis of the first round of congressional investigation against Duterte in 2024, is also an NUP member.

NUP is the largest voting bloc after Lakas, with around 30 members.

Impeachment campaigners can still technically scrape together 105 to 106 votes to reach the one-third threshold to put Duterte on trial at the Senate, but they are losing ground instead of gaining speed. – Rappler.com