The impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte will likely be a numbers recreation. Wanting again on the observe information of the senator-judges can foreshadow how their loyalties could both endure or falter.
“Legislative voting patterns will not be random. They’re the product of institutional incentives, social gathering relationships, coalition dynamics, constituency pressures, and particular person preferences,” political analyst and Ateneo de Manila College assistant professor Arjan Aguirre instructed Rappler.
He added that whereas these votes present the place senators could initially lean, they don’t decide how they are going to in the end vote within the impeachment trial. In response to him, senators act strategically, adapting to new political realities as an alternative of merely repeating previous habits to offer them higher potential returns.
He summarized these incentives into six elements which will push a senator’s vote to conviction or acquittal.
For him, assessing these elements by means of voting habits offers a extra dependable sign of alignment — even in comparison with the positions that these officers could explicitly specific.
These votes, in any case, are an “indicator of the place that member has usually stood on essential political questions,” in response to Aguirre. Duterte’s impeachment trial is a kind of questions.
Political science professor Jean Franco of the College of the Philippines – Diliman additionally mentioned that predicting how senators will vote in an impeachment trial is extremely tough because of the institutional nature of the Senate, the place members are elected as particular person personalities quite than strict social gathering loyalists.
“We undoubtedly want to have a look at how public opinion will affect senators whether or not to seek out Duterte responsible or not,” Franco instructed Rappler.
So, how has the present roster of senators reacted to the altering political tides of the final two administrations? And what do these present about their voting tendencies?
Right here’s a glance again on their key legislative votes and political alliances.
Management shakeup
To calculate the likelihood of the place senator-judges could lean through the impeachment trial, Aguirre utilized the six elements he outlined to a few key Senate management votes: the Could 11 coup putting in Cayetano, the June 3 ouster of Cayetano, and the June 17 formal election of Gatchalian.
As of June 25, 2026 • Desk by Arjan Aguirre • Visualization by Rappler
Legislative research present that swing legislators who will not be firmly aligned with both bloc could make or break a vote, Aguirre instructed Rappler.
“In an impeachment trial, the place conviction requires a constitutional supermajority, each potential swing vote turns into much more consequential,” he mentioned.
However these legislators can’t be described as “unpredictable,” Aguirre added. He mentioned a greater description could be “strategically responsive” since lawmakers have a tendency to reply to incentives quite than act randomly.
With Marcoleta’s attainable arrest on the horizon — together with Estrada’s detention and Dela Rosa’s fugitive standing — Franco mentioned that authorized luminaries are nonetheless debating the required voting threshold for conviction.
Nevertheless, she emphasised that the extra essential issue for the general public to be careful for is how each Duterte’s camp and the prosecution will deal with the trial and no matter outcomes emerge from it.
“There’s now a hazard that will probably be the Supreme Courtroom (SC) that may in the end resolve,” she mentioned.
The SC beforehand intervened within the first impeachment try in opposition to Duterte, declaring the preliminary case unconstitutional on July 25, 2025, due to the one-year bar rule. Duterte is now making an attempt to make use of the identical rule to dam the 2026 impeachment trial.
Election ties
A lot of our present senators have floated between the marketing campaign slates of various presidential hopefuls throughout the previous two administrations.
Within the context of Duterte’s impeachment, their alliances from the previous two elections are probably the most informative. From the 2025 elections, senators Tito Sotto, Ping Lacson, Lito Lapid, Pia Cayetano, Imee Marcos, Erwin Tulfo, and Camille Villar have been from the administration-backed Alyansa slate.
5 got here from the Duterte slate: Bato dela Rosa, Rodante Marcoleta, and Bong Go, together with Marcos and Cayetano — who have been a part of each slates at one level.
Senators Sherwin Gatchalian, Migz Zubiri, Jinggoy Estrada, Loren Legarda, Marcoleta, Robin Padilla, and Mark Villar have been from the UniTeam slate endorsed by each Marcos and Duterte in 2022.
Eight senators weren’t a part of the slates endorsed by both camp prior to now two elections: Alan Peter Cayetano, Bam Aquino, JV Ejercito, Chiz Escudero, Risa Hontiveros, Kiko Pangilinan, Raffy Tulfo, and Joel Villanueva.
2028 elections
Aguirre mentioned that for us to finest perceive the positions and leanings of the senator-judges, it’s also finest to have a look at their pursuits — each private and public — that could be weighted of their casting of votes. How they are going to vote can open a danger for his or her 2028 political ambitions, particularly for many who are searching for reelection.
Graduating 4
Reelectionist (Majority) 3
Reelectionist (Minority) 5
Among the many 24 senator-judges, there are 4 graduating senators — all of whom are presently in Gatchalian’s majority bloc.
There are additionally 9 reelectionists, with 4 within the majority bloc and 5 in Cayetano’s minority bloc.
In response to Aguirre, because of this these senators will likely be extremely involved about public notion that may form their probabilities for the subsequent election. He defined that defending Duterte will draw backlash from media and civil society teams, however opposing her dangers dropping assist from Duterte’s mass base for the upcoming elections.
The newest Pulse Asia rankings point out that she holds the very best approval and belief scores in 2026, standing at 55% and 54% respectively, in comparison with Marcos’ 36% approval and 35% belief rankings.
Earlier impeachment votes
Previous to Duterte’s impeachment trial, the senator-judges had voted on a number of motions in relation to her first impeachment. A lot of them voted in her favor.
However virtually a whole 12 months has handed since then, and within the span of that 12 months, many Senate alliances have shifted.
The previous president and his ICC case
Sara’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, and his case with the Worldwide Prison Courtroom (ICC) can even proceed to carry sway over the impeachment trial, in response to Aguirre. Senators have voted on Duterte and the ICC prior to now.
Marcos and Duterte pet payments
When a majority of lawmakers are aligned with the administration, the manager can leverage that affect to champion even probably the most polarizing payments. This was evident in how the Marcos administration enacted controversial legal guidelines just like the Maharlika Funding Fund and the postponement of the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, with huge margins.
Most of those payments have been met with supermajority votes even with sturdy opposition from different lawmakers and a low consciousness charge amongst residents, in response to surveys.
Below the earlier Duterte administration, varied controversial payments and resolutions have been additionally enacted given the huge legislative majority the previous president’s allies held within the seventeenth and 18th Congresses.
Like his successor, Rodrigo Duterte was additionally capable of get supermajority votes for his pet payments with Hontiveros and Pangilinan as the one ones persistently voting no in opposition to his pet payments.
Of explicit notice is the senators’ votes on the opposing Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) legal guidelines of the Marcos and Duterte administrations. Most of the senators who voted to legalize them in 2021 modified their tune 4 years later, when Senate investigations uncovered these POGOs’ hyperlinks to Chinese language property and intense public scrutiny ensued.
In the identical method, the chances could appear to be stacked in opposition to Duterte’s conviction — however consultants say a lot can nonetheless be accomplished to reverse them.
Franco instructed Rappler that a number of senators had already been unlikely to vote for conviction even earlier than the trial. Now, the very best hope for a conviction depends closely on the standard of the prosecution’s proof and abilities.
“If the prosecution crew can really make it clear to the general public the proof and the witnesses they introduced are simple, will probably be tough for a senator to justify an acquittal,” she mentioned. “They have to construct the form of a case that makes it extremely tough for senators to not discover Sara responsible.”
Aguirre added to that, saying public opinion will play an important function within the upcoming impeachment trial. He mentioned residents should voice their sentiments to compel lawmakers to do what is correct.
“For ‘comfortable conviction’ senators to be enlightened, we should present them that the general public is laser-focused on the problems,” he mentioned. “We now have to point out them the folks’s suggestions on how they behave and resolve…to affect them to do the correct factor.” – Rappler.com
