MANILA: Impeached Philippine vice president Sara Duterte has returned home after nearly a month at her father’s side in The Hague, where he is facing a charge of crimes against humanity, her communications team said Monday.
“My job here is done,” she told reporters ahead of her departure, saying former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s legal team was now set and she had filed the “last document” needed at the International Criminal Court.
The vice president added the family no longer intends to seek financial aid to pay for her father’s defence. “If we need to (sell) things to support our financial needs, we will do that,” she said.
Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on March 11 and whisked away the same day to the Netherlands-based tribunal to face charges tied to his drug war, in which thousands of mostly poor men were killed.
Daughter Sara followed him to The Hague immediately after and had been coordinating his legal affairs and acting as his mouthpiece, holding a number of press conferences outside the court building.
She landed at Manila’s international airport on Sunday night, according to her communications team.
The vice president returns as her family’s PDP Laban party is lagging in polls ahead of May mid-term elections that will determine 12 senate seats and thousands of smaller positions across the archipelago nation of 117 million.
The Duterte clan is embroiled in a bitter feud with President Ferdinand Marcos, a one-time ally and Sara’s running mate in the 2022 presidential campaign, which they won in a landslide.
Cracks in their short-lived alliance appeared almost as soon as they won, when Duterte was handed the education portfolio after lobbying to oversee defence.
Since then, a simmering feud has exploded into open warfare with the two political dynasties attacking each other publicly, including the elder Duterte labelling Marcos a drug addict.
Sara 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”.
Among the charges is an alleged plot to assassinate Marcos tied to public comments she has dismissed as venting frustration at the administration’s policies.
Her senate trial is set to take place following the May 12 mid-term election, the results of which will determine who serves as her jurors.
If convicted, the vice president would be barred from holding public office.
