Do we like Sara Duterte?
Our score: 4 out of 10. Some real support for LGBTQ+ legal protections and relief work, set against remarks that drew criticism and two unresolved legal fights that she denies.
Sara Duterte is the daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte and rose through Davao City: vice mayor from 2007, then mayor in 2010-2013 and again 2016-2022. She joined Marcos Jr.'s cabinet as Education secretary in 2022 and became vice president that year. The Marcos-Duterte alliance has since collapsed, and in February 2026 she announced she'll run for president in 2028.
The threats case is the messy one. In a late-night news briefing in November 2024 she said she had arranged for people to kill President Marcos, his wife and a congressman cousin if she were killed first. She says she was misconstrued and denies threatening anyone. A Quezon City court nonetheless issued an arrest warrant on three counts of grave threats in September 2026, and she posted bail the next day; the case is ongoing.
Then there's the money. The Commission on Audit upheld the disallowance of P73 million of the confidential funds her office received in December 2022, and her lawyers say they'll take it to the Supreme Court. The House impeached her in May 2026 on charges including graft and corruption. She has said every cent of her wealth is legitimate, and nothing has been proven.
The Senate trial began in July and was still on in October, with prosecutors presenting property records and bank-monitoring reports on the unexplained wealth article, and her defence contesting how they were handled. In September the Senate court voted 13-1 to change how the conviction threshold is counted, which cuts the votes needed from 16 to 14. No verdict has been reached, so treat everything above as allegation, not finding.
On the harm check, the record is split. In June 2025 she backed the proposed Civil Union Act and a Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Act, but when asked about the SOGIE Equality bill she declined to answer. As mayor in 2019 she said she supported SOGIE rights but not trans women using women's toilets, and in 2024 the group Bahaghari called a remark she made to police, telling them not to be gay, derogatory. She has also denied links to the Davao death squad, after a self-confessed former hitman made claims. I found nothing on her stance on climate or vaccines.
On how she treats people, she has a temper on the record: in 2011 she was reported to have punched a court sheriff over a demolition, and she apologised about a year later. Her office says its disaster operations centre has delivered relief to more than 535,000 families, though that figure is the office's own and I found no independent audit of it. That's the real good here, but it's thin on outside verification.