A Broken Promise on Trial

Sep 13

2 min read

Since the 2022 elections, we have trusted our elected officials to unite and strengthen our nation. That trust was broken by our Vice President, who once swore to unite the government, protect our country, and lead national projects, and is now facing an impeachment trial and criminal charges for doing the exact opposite.

Vice President Sara Duterte now has an arrest warrant and an impeachment trial regarding 4 articles of impeachment filed by the House of Representatives. She allegedly, in Article I, misused and inappropriately used confidential funds of ₱500 million under the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and ₱112.5 million under the Department of Education (DepEd) budget, flagged by the Commission on Audit (COA) after it noticed an unlawful expenditure of funds; and in Article II, she failed to show sufficient records and requirements of asset growth in the Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN).

She was also accused, under Article III, of bribing DepEd officials to influence procurement rules. The House reportedly said she wants them to violate or skip procurement laws for DepEd projects to choose her favored suppliers and approve irregular liquidation of confidential funds, and under Article IV, she publicly threatened three figures: President Ferdinand "BongBong" Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, stating in a November 2024 Facebook livestream that Sara contracted an assassin to assassinate the three figures if she were killed.

We elected our officials to serve us, to make our lives better, yet our vice president is getting impeached due to the opposite of what she promised. So we may never be sure if we can trust our government, not for this batch, but for more generations to come.