30/04/2026

THURSDAY | APR 30, 2026

7 Philippine VP faces impeachment vote

o A‘ llegations politically motivated’

joint ticket in 2022 elections that they both won in landslides. With Marcos limited by the constitution to a single term in office, Duterte is the clear favourite to succeed him in 2028. Announcing her decision in February to run for the top job, Duterte apologised for helping Marcos to become president. The vice-president’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the house committee’s decision. Duterte has previously dismissed the complaint as “just a piece of paper”. The vice-president has been subjected to intense scrutiny since the fallout with Marcos and her latest battle comes as her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, prepares to go on trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague over thousands of killings during his signature “war on drugs”. Sara Duterte could become the second most senior office holder to be impeached in the Philippines after former president Joseph Estrada, whose 2001 Senate trial was aborted when some prosecutors walked out. Three other top officials have been impeached and include an ombudsman and an election commission head who both resigned before their trials, and former Supreme Court chief justice Renato

MANILA: The Philippine House justice committee yesterday found probable cause to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, moving a step closer to a process that could derail her bid to become the next president. The complaint will go to the plenary for a vote when Congress resumes session next month, with the backing of a third of its members needed to advance to an impeachment trial in the Senate, where if convicted she would be removed from office and banned from politics for life. Duterte’s impeachment was sought by civil society and leftist groups, who accuse her of misusing public funds, accumulating unexplained wealth and of threatening the lives of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, his wife and his cousin, the former house speaker. In a vote of the committee, all 53 members agreed there was probable cause to impeach Duterte. She denies wrongdoing and says the complaint is politically motivated. Duterte remains locked in an acrimonious public feud with former ally Marcos, with whom she ran on a

Footage of the vice-president is shown on screens as lawmakers conduct a committee hearing at the House of Representatives in Quezon City, Metro Manila yesterday. – AFPPIC

impeachment bid in February after his allies in Congress voted to dismiss it. He has distanced himself from the proceedings against Duterte. – Reuters

Congress stacked with allies of Marcos but it was thrown out in July last year by the Supreme Court, which ruled it was unconstitutional. Marcos survived a separate

Corona, who was the only one convicted so far. A previous attempt to impeach Duterte on similar allegations was backed overwhelmingly by a

Forest felling slows, but still worrying PARIS: The pace of tropical forest destruction slowed last year after record losses the year before but remained at worrying levels equivalent to 11 football fields per minute, researchers said yesterday. The world lost 4.3 million hectares of primary rainforest last year, down 36% from 2024, said researchers from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the University of Maryland. “A good year is a good year, but you need good years forever if you’re going to conserve, for example, the rainforest,” said Matthew Hansen, director of the GLAD Lab at University of Maryland. Much of last year’s slowdown was due to sharp declines in Brazil. Brazil’s forest loss, excluding fires, was 41% lower than in 2024, its lowest rate on record. “Brazil’s declines are associated with stronger environmental policies and enforcement,” Goldman said.

“A drop of this scale in a single year is encouraging, it shows what decisive government action can achieve,” said Elizabeth Goldman, co-director of WRI’s Global Forest Watch platform. The researchers noted that last year’s forest loss was still significant – about the size of Denmark and 46% higher than a decade ago. Despite last year’s progress, forest loss remains 70% above the level required to meet the 2030 goal of halting and reversing forest loss. MANILA: A Russian super-yacht trapped in the Gulf by the Middle East war carried stranded Filipino seafarers out through the perilous Strait of Hormuz, the Philippines government said. The Russia-flagged Nord , a 142m long yacht reportedly linked to the Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov, passed the strait on Saturday, the Department of Migrant Workers said in a statement. On board the yacht and a bulk cargo ship that also passed that day “were 36 Filipino seafarers, bringing the total Filipino crew of vessels out of the strait to close to 1,200”, it said.

But the country’s forests are still threatened by agriculture, which remains the largest driver of forest loss to make room for soy fields and cattle ranches. Some states in the Amazon have passed legislation to weaken environmental protections.

Forest loss in Colombia fell 17% due to government policies and forest clearing limits. – AFP Yacht, cruise ships rescue seafarers

The accused personnel at a military court in Jakarta yesterday. – AFPPIC

Four in military court over acid attack JAKARTA: Military prosecutors here charged four officers yesterday for their alleged involvement in an acid attack on an activist known for campaigning against the expanding public role of the armed forces, seeking a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison. Andrie Yunus, a deputy international condemnation. The four officers were charged under Indonesia’s criminal code with serious premeditated assault, carrying a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison, court documents showed.

alleged defendants used a mixture of car battery acid and rust remover. In a separate investigation, Indonesia’s top human rights watchdog, Komnas HAM, said there were at least 14 people linked to the attack. It said the fact that Andrie’s case is being handled by the military court shows a lack of public participation and could mean the officers will be treated more leniently. It urged police to investigate the other 10 people allegedly linked to the attack in civilian courts. President Prabowo Subianto said last month that the attack on Andrie was an act of “terrorism”. – Reuters

The department’s secretary Hans Leo Cacdac told a news conference last week that about 800 of them had been taken through the strait in cruise ships that escaped the strait with passengers. Maritime trackers indicated that several cruise ships managed to make it through the route on April 18, after Iran briefly announced it was lifting its closure of the strait. Cacdac said 15 other Filipino seafarers were on board two container ships that were later seized by Iranian forces on April 22: the Epaminondas and the Francesca . – AFP

Mohammad Iswadi, a military prosecutor, said the four officers from the military’s intelligence unit allegedly attacked Andrie because they felt affronted by his protest last year against legal changes allowing more military officers to be appointed to civilian government posts. “With the incident, the suspects deemed Andrie Yunus to have insulted and stomped on the military as an institution,” he said, adding the

coordinator with the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, a rights group also known as KontraS, suffered burns to 20% of his face and body from acid thrown by assailants on March 12. The attack, which left Andrie permanently scarred and his right eye heavily damaged, drew local and