MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte said Wednesday she would seek the presidency in the 2028 elections — a bid that would have to withstand new impeachment attempts in Congress and criminal complaints that could ban her from public office if convicted.
She made the announcement in a televised speech where she renewed allegations of corruption and misrule against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. They were running mates in a whirlwind alliance in the 2022 election but have since had a bitter falling out.
She and her family have blamed Marcos for the detention of her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, who faces a potential trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court, which ordered his arrest and detention in the Netherlands last year over his deadly anti-drugs crackdown.
Sara Duterte accused Marcos of reneging on his campaign promises and of misrule. She repeatedly asked for public forgiveness for problems such as government corruption, law-and-order issues and inflation.
“Politicians often avoid announcing their plans early so they wouldn’t be the target of attacks,” Duterte said. “But this administration has long destroyed my name.”
She then announced her presidential bid and left a news conference without taking any questions.
Marcos, who is limited to a single, six-year term, did not immediately react to the vice president’s presidential bid and her allegations. A presidential spokesperson, Claire Castro, said Duterte should apologize to the public for the many irregularities and corruption allegations she’s facing along with her frequent personal trips abroad.
“She should ask forgiveness for focusing on destroying reputations of other people instead of doing her work and helping the government,” Castro said.
Most of the allegations against Duterte had been included in an impeachment complaint she survived on a technicality last year.
The House of Representatives had voted to impeach her and sent the case to the Senate for trial. The Supreme Court, however, later ruled that the lower chamber violated a constitutional rule that only one impeachment case could be processed by it in a single year against an impeachable official.
The impeachment complaints filed this month centered on her alleged illegal use and mishandling of $10.3 million in confidential funds from the vice president’s office and from her time as education secretary under Marcos.
Another complaint accused her of having unexplained wealth, including in personal bank accounts. An anti-graft prosecutor has said his agency was trying to gain access to those accounts as part of a separate criminal investigation.
The vice president’s threat during an online news conference in 2024 to have the president, his wife and House of Representatives speaker killed if she herself was assassinated was cited in one of the impeachment complaints.
During the House’s original investigation into the allegations, Duterte refused to respond in detail to questions and skipped some of the televised hearings.
The vice president’s lawyer, Michael Poa, has said Duterte was prepared to confront these allegations and was confident “that a fair and impartial review will demonstrate that the accusations are devoid of both factual and legal basis.”
Rodrigo Duterte aligned himself closely with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin during his stormy presidency, which ended in 2022. He was succeeded by Marcos, who has deepened defense and military ties with Washington to confront an increasingly assertive Beijing in the disputed South China Sea.
Sara Duterte has been criticized for failing to publicly call out China for its aggressive actions against the Philippines in the disputed waters.
“Let’s be cautious and analytical. Somebody who is seeking your vote maybe a Manchurian candidate,” Castro said.
Philippine VP Sara Duterte announces 2028 presidential bid
https://arab.news/g4gb4
Philippine VP Sara Duterte announces 2028 presidential bid
- Her bid would have to withstand new impeachment attempts and criminal complaints that could ban her from public office if convicted
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Rubio defends US ouster of Venezuela’s Maduro to Caribbean leaders unsettled by Trump policies
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts and Nevis: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday defended the Trump administration’s military operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, telling Caribbean leaders, many of whom objected to that move, that the country and the region were better off as a result.
Speaking to leaders from the 15-member Caribbean Community bloc at a summit in the country of St. Kitts and Nevis, Rubio brushed aside concerns about the legality of Maduro’s capture last month that have been raised among Venezuela’s island-state neighbors and others.
“Irrespective of how some of you may have individually felt about our operations and our policy toward Venezuela, I will tell you this, and I will tell you this without any apology or without any apprehension: Venezuela is better off today than it was eight weeks ago,” Rubio told the leaders in a closed-door meeting, according to a transcript of his remarks later distributed by the US State Department.
Rubio said that since Maduro’s ouster and the effective takeover of Venezuela’s oil sector by the United States, the interim authorities in the South American country have made “substantial” progress in improving conditions by doing “things that eight or nine weeks ago would have been unimaginable.”
The Caribbean leaders have gathered to debate pressing issues in a region that President Donald Trump has targeted for a 21st-century incarnation of the Monroe Doctrine meant to ensure Washington’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The Republican administration has declared a focus closer to home even as Washington increasingly has been preoccupied by the possibility of a US military attack on Iran.
Rubio downplays antagonism in US regional push
In his remarks to the group, America’s top diplomat tried to play down any antagonistic intent in what Trump has referred to as the “Donroe Doctrine.” Rubio said the administration wants to strengthen ties with the region in the wake of the Venezuela operation and ensure that issues such as crime and economic opportunities are jointly addressed.
“I am very happy to be in an administration that’s giving priority to the Western Hemisphere after largely being ignored for a very long time,” Rubio said. “We share common opportunities, and we share some common challenges. And that’s what we hope to confront.”
He said transnational criminal organizations pose the biggest threat to the Caribbean while recognizing that many are buying weapons from the United States, a problem he said authorities are tackling.
Rubio also said the US and the Caribbean can work together on economic advancement and energy issues, especially because many leaders at the four-day summit have energy resources they seek to explore. “We want to be your partner in that regard,” he said.
Rubio said the US recognizes the need for fair, democratic elections in Venezuela, which lies just miles away from Trinidad and Tobago at the closest point.
“We do believe that a prosperous, free Venezuela who’s governed by a legitimate government who has the interests of their people in mind could also be an extraordinary partner and asset to many of the countries represented here today in terms of energy needs and the like, and also one less source of instability in the region,” he said.
Rubio added: “We view our security, our prosperity, our stability to be intricately tied to yours.”
Trump plays up Maduro’s ouster
Trump, in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, called the operation that spirited Maduro out of Venezuela to face drug trafficking charges in New York “an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States.”
The US had built up the largest military presence in the Caribbean Sea in generations before the Jan. 3 raid. That has now been exceeded by the surge of American warships and aircraft to the Middle East as the administration pressures Iran to make a deal over its nuclear program.
In the Caribbean, Trump has stepped up aggressive tactics to combat alleged drug smuggling with a series of strikes on boats that have killed over 150 people and he has tightened pressure on Cuba. Regional leaders have complained about administration demands for nations to accept third-country deportees from the US and to chill relations with China.
One regional leader who has backed the US escalation is Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, whom Rubio thanked for her “public support for US military operations in the South Caribbean Sea,” the State Department said.
Persad-Bissessar told reporters that her conversation with Rubio focused on “Haiti; we talked about Cuba of course; we talked about engagements with Venezuela and the way forward.”
She was asked if she considered the latest US military strikes in Caribbean waters as extrajudicial killings: “I don’t think they are, and if they are, we will find out, but our legal advice is they are not.”
Rubio had other one-on-one meetings with heads of government, including from St. Kitts and Nevis, Haiti, Jamaica and Guyana.
Caribbean leaders point to shifting global order
Trump said during the State of the Union that his administration is “restoring American security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere, acting to secure our national interests and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism and foreign interference.”
Terrance Drew, prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis and chair of the Caribbean Community bloc, said the region “stands at a decisive hour” and that “the global order is shifting.”
Drew and other leaders said Cuba’s humanitarian situation must be addressed.
“It must be clear that a prolonged crisis in Cuba will not remain confined to Cuba,” Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned. “It will affect migration, security and economic stability across the Caribbean basin.”
The US Treasury Department on Wednesday slightly eased restrictions on the sale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, which instituted austere fuel-saving measures in the weeks after the US raid in Venezuela.
That move came hours before Cuba’s government announced that its soldiers killed four people aboard a speedboat registered in Florida that had opened fire on officers in Cuban waters.
