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A Philippine congressional committee agreed overwhelmingly Wednesday to advance the impeachment case against Vice-President Sara Duterte, setting the stage for a potential vote that could decide her political future.The daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who in February announced a 2028 presidential bid, was impeached last year, only for the Supreme Court to toss the case out over procedural issues.Under the Philippine constitution, an impeachment by the House of Representatives triggers a Senate trial, where a guilty verdict would ban Duterte from elected office for life.The new complaints, ruled "sufficient in substance" by a vote of 54-1 Wednesday, accuse her of graft and corruption while in office and of making a death threat against former ally President Ferdinand Marcos.She will now have 10 days to respond before the start of a hearing of probable cause necessary to move the complaints to a House vote.Duterte's 2025 impeachment effectively bypassed the committee process, when the necessary one-third of House members signed an impeachment complaint, sending it directly to the Senate."Our vote today is not a verdict of guilt nor an act of condemnation. It's simply a decision on whether the constitutional process should move forward," Representative Ferdinand Hernandez said minutes before the vote.The vice president's legal team said Wednesday they would not comment on specific allegations."For now, we will refrain from discussing the substance of the case in the media and will instead address these matters through the proper constitutional processes," lawyer Michael Poa said in a statement.While a probable cause hearing still looms, Michael Tiu, assistant professor of law at the University of the Philippines, told AFP he believed nothing would derail the path to a House vote."With the 54-1 gap in the committee voting, I think it's impossible that these impeachment complaints will be junked, given that there's a huge gap and many saw that the complaints have merit," he said.Analysts have warned that Duterte's presidential announcement will weigh heavily on lawmakers forced to gauge the repercussions of a vote against someone who may yet hold the country's highest office.The alleged death threat against Marcos stems from a late-night press briefing in which Duterte claimed to have hired an assassin to kill the president and members of his family should he have her cut down first.While the vice-president later said the comments were misinterpreted, lawmaker Gerville Luistro said Wednesday that the alleged threats could destabilise institutions."They carry weight. They create fear," she said.Duterte and Marcos have been engaged in a high-stakes political brawl that erupted within weeks of their 2022 win in the presidential election, when the vice president was denied her favoured cabinet portfolios and instead named education secretary.The justice committee last month tossed out a pair of impeachment complaints against Marcos, ruling that allegations of corruption over a scandal involving bogus flood control projects lacked substance. 

International Criminal Court prosecutors have charged former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte with three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders as part of his "war on drugs."A heavily redacted charge sheet dated July 4 but only made public on Monday lays out the accusations against the 80-year-old former leader, currently sitting in ICC detention in The Hague.The first count concerns his alleged involvement as a co-perpetrator in 19 murders carried out between 2013 and 2016 while Duterte was mayor of Davao City.The second count relates to 14 murders of so-called "High Value Targets" in 2016 and 2017 when Duterte was president.And the third charge is about 43 murders committed during "clearance" operations of lower-level alleged drug users or pushers.These took place across the Philippines between 2016 and 2018, the prosecution alleged."The actual scale of victimisation during the charged period was significantly greater, as reflected in the widespread nature of the attack," said the ICC prosecutors."The attack included thousands of killings, which were perpetrated consistently throughout the charged period," they alleged.The charges against Duterte stem from his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups said killed thousands.The arrest warrant issued for Duterte on March 7 contained one charge of crimes against humanity relating to 43 alleged murders.The prosecutors' charges came on the eve of what was scheduled to be Duterte's appearance at the ICC to hear the accusations against him.However that sitting was postponed as the court weighs whether Duterte is fit to hear the charges.His lawyer Nicholas Kaufman has said his client is not able to stand trial "as a result of cognitive impairment in multiple domains".Kaufman has urged the ICC to postpone proceedings against Duterte indefinitely.Duterte was arrested in Manila on March 11, flown to the Netherlands that same night and has been held at the ICC's detention unit at Scheveningen Prison since.At his initial hearing, he followed by video link, appearing dazed and frail, barely speaking.