BANTAY Senado will monitor and explain the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
“This will be the first impeachment trial when social media and generative artificial intelligence are already dominant,” Team Pinas Executive Director Carlo Flores said in Filipino and English in the Saturday News Forum.
He said disinformation was made easy by artificial intelligence.
“Our volunteer influencers, guided by ... our volunteer legal team, will explain what happened in the process, why it is important, how we will weigh the evidence. ... We will give unbiased analysis grounded in law and that will be communicated either in English, Tagalog — if you want, Young Stunna or Geng Geng — so that ... our countrymen will understand,” he said.
The House of Representatives, voting 257-25 with nine abstentions, impeached Duterte on May 11, 2026, over alleged misuse of confidential funds, unexplained wealth allegedly amassed, alleged bribery, and her statement that she had arranged to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. killed if something happened to her.
The House sent the articles of impeachment to the Senate on May 13.
Duterte has a June 1, 2026 deadline to file her answer to the impeachment articles. Her defense team has said it will comply.
Duterte denied the allegations in the two complaints heard by the House Committee on Justice, which found probable cause to impeach her.
One of the biggest challenges for the House’s impeachment prosecutors was fake news, Iloilo 3rd District Rep. Lorenz Defensor said in a press conference on May 19, 2026.
“One of the biggest challenges that we face is fake news, trolls who disseminate false news, who are drilling wrong evidence in the minds of our countrymen,” Defensor said in Filipino and English.
Responding to another query earlier in the same press conference, Batangas 2nd District Rep. Gerville Luistro, the chairman of the House Committee on Justice and the House’s lead public prosecutor for the impeachment trial, said, “Evidence and public opinion are very much intertwined. If you will be able to present strong evidence, ... you will be able to get a favorable public opinion.”
Aside from Luistro and Defensor, the following were also part of the House’s team of public prosecutors for the impeachment trial: Bicol Saro Rep. Terry Ridon, 1-Rider Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez, San Juan City Rep. Ysabel Maria Zamora, Akbayan Rep. Jose Manuel Diokno, Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima, Dinagat Islands Rep. Arlene Bag-ao, Bukidnon 2nd District Rep. Jonathan Keith Flores, Cagayan de Oro 1st District Rep. Lordan Suan, and Manila 3rd District Rep. Joel Chua.
The articles of impeachment seek Duterte’s removal from office and a lifetime ban from any government position.
“Wherefore, it is respectfully prayed that after trial, the Senate, sitting as an Impeachment Court, render judgment” declaring her guilty on all the articles; imposing upon her “the penalty of removal from office as Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines and perpetual disqualification from holding any office under the Republic of the Philippines”; and declaring that she “shall further be liable to prosecution, trial, and punishment, according to law.”
Article I alleged that Duterte committed culpable violation of the Constitution, graft and corruption, and betrayed public trust “through the systematic misuse, misappropriation, and irregular liquidation of confidential funds amounting to” P500 million “released to the Office of the Vice President and” P112.5 million “released to the Department of Education.”
Duterte served as education secretary before she resigned from that post in 2024.
Article II alleged that she committed culpable violation of the Constitution and betrayed public trust when” she: allegedly amassed “unexplained wealth manifestly disproportionate to her lawful income and earnings during her incumbency as a public official”; allegedly failed “to fully and truthfully disclose all her and her spouse’s assets, liabilities, and net worth in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (‘SALN’), including in her SALN for the years 2022, 2023, and 2024”; and allegedly failed “to divest, and instead, willfully continued, all her business interests during her tenure as” vice president “for the years 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.”
Article III alleged that she “committed bribery, graft and corruption, culpable violation of the Constitution, and betrayed public trust when she gave monetary gifts or payments to” certain people “to induce the violation and circumvention of procurement and other related laws.”
The last article, Article IV, alleged that Duterte “committed culpable violation of the Constitution, high crimes, and betrayed public trust by contracting for the assassination of” President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and Leyte 1st District Rep. and former speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez “by making grave threats and by actively inciting sedition against the” republic.
Duterte has denied making an assassination threat.
In her answer to the complaints, she said that the complaints failed to show “any shred of proof” that a contract to kill ever existed. “Instead, complainants rely on exaggerated conclusions dressed up as fact,” it read.
“Absent any statement of ultimate facts in any of these Impeachment Complaints, there is nothing for respondent to answer. Respondent thus only admits averments therein insofar as they allege her election, assumption to the Office of the Vice President, appointment as Secretary of Education, and her prior offices as Mayor and Vice Mayor of Davao City,” Duterte’s answer to the complaints read.
“The rest of the allegations, including the annexes and so-called evidence attached to the Impeachment Complaints, are specifically denied for being false, misleading, impertinent, and mere conclusions of fact and law,” it read.
