The impeachment case against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte is moving, but barely. Prosecutors this week complained of fresh delays in the proceedings, a drip of procedural wrangling that threatens to blunt one of the most consequential political trials in the country’s recent history.
Delay is rarely neutral. In high-stakes impeachments, time can drain momentum, exhaust public attention and give a defendant room to regroup. Each postponement invites the suspicion, from one side, that the process is being slow-walked, and from the other, that it was flimsy to begin with.
The trial is the legal face of a broader collapse: the spectacular falling-out between the Marcos and Duterte dynasties that once shared power. What began as an alliance of convenience has curdled into a contest that runs through the courts, the Senate and the streets, with the vice presidency itself in the balance.
How the trial ends will shape more than one career. A conviction would assert that no official is above accountability; an acquittal or a quiet fizzle would confirm the cynics who call Philippine impeachments political theatre. For now, the drama advances one delay at a time.
