The Philippine Supreme Court has not dismissed the impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte in March, contrary to rumours that have circulated on social media. The false posts misrepresented a news report about South Korea’s constitutional court reinstating Prime Minister Han Duck-soo as acting head of state following months of political turmoil.
“Breaking News VP Sara has won,” reads Tagalog-language text overlaid on a Facebook video shared March 26, 2025.
“The Supreme Court has junked the impeachment complaint against VP Sarah (sic),” its caption further claims.
It shows a news anchor saying “five out of eight magistrates” agreed to dismiss an impeachment case against a public official — whose name was not mentioned throughout the one-minute 25-second clip.
Screenshot of the false post, taken on April 4, 2025
Vice President Duterte was impeached by the House of Representatives in early February for “violation of the constitution, betrayal of public trust, graft and corruption, and other high crimes”.
Her family is embroiled in a bitter feud with President Ferdinand Marcos, a one-time ally and Duterte’s running mate in the 2022 presidential campaign, which they won in a landslide.
Her Senate trial is set to take place following the May 12 midterm election, the results of which will determine who serves as her jurors. If convicted, the vice president would be barred from holding public office.
Lawyers supporting Duterte have asked the Supreme Court to toss the impeachment and prevent the Senate from proceeding with a trial, saying it had been unconstitutionally rushed through without proper oversight (archived link).
But there have been no official reports the court has issued a decision as of April 7.
Similar false claims circulating on TikTok have been earlier debunked by Philippine fact-checking organisation Vera Files (archived link).
South Korea impeachment
Reverse image searches on Google using keyframes from the misrepresented video found it published on the verified YouTube account of local TV station Net25 on March 25, 2025 (archived link).
The clip is from the network’s current affairs programme “Sa Ganang Mamamayan” which translates to “For the Citizen”.
A portion of the broadcast omitted in the circulating posts shows the anchor identifying the subject of the report as South Korea’s Prime Minister Han Duck-soo — not Vice President Duterte.
Han became the nation’s acting leader in December 2024 after South Korea’s president at the time, Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached following a short-lived declaration of martial law (archived link).
Han was also impeached over what the opposition calls his refusal to sign into law special bills to investigate Yoon, but the constitutional court reinstated him as acting president (archived link).
Although the news anchor mistakenly refers to the South Korean tribunal as the “supreme court” earlier in the clip, he later corrects himself.
“The constitutional court of South Korea has junked the impeachment complaint against Prime Minister Han Duck-Soo last Monday, yesterday,” the anchor said.
Screenshot of the false post (L) and the Net25 video on YouTube
The Philippine Supreme Court is composed of 15 judges — not eight. The high court may sit en banc or in divisions of three, five or seven members based on the discretion of the judges (archived link).
AFP has previously fact-checked false claims related to Duterte’s impeachment.
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