Philippine top court ruling dismisses contempt complaints, not Duterte's impeachment trial

"The fake impeachment against the VP is trashed again. Long live the Supreme Court and the Filipino people," reads part of the overlaid Tagalog-language text on a screenshot of a Supreme Court press release, shared on TikTok on July 18, 2026. 

"In the said decision, the Court declared the fourth impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte to be unconstitutional."

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Screenshot of the false post captured on July 27, 2026, with red X added by AFP

The posts circulated as the Senate conducted an impeachment trial against Duterte on charges transmitted by the House of Representatives earlier in the year (archived link).

The House had impeached her on allegations of graft, corruption, bribery and an alleged assassination plot against one-time ally President Ferdinand Marcos.

A guilty verdict by two-thirds of a bitterly divided 24-seat Senate could strip her of the vice presidency and permanently bar her from elected office.

Similar claims the Supreme Court had halted proceedings were also shared elsewhere on social media.

"I absolutely and seriously agree with the SC's decision. The anti-Duterte camp's actions against VP Sara are already a grave abuse of power," reads a comment on one of the posts.

Another says: "The people's money is being wasted. It's being spent on a useless impeachment that only serves their personal interests."

But Duterte's impeachment trial has not been shut down by the Supreme Court.

Prosecutors continued to set out their case in the Senate days after posts circulated, focussing on the presentation of evidence on Duterte's alleged misuse of confidential funds as education secretary (archived here and here).  

The court had earlier granted subpoenas for the financial records of Duterte and her husband after prosecutors rested their case on alleged threats made against Marcos (archived here and here).

Contempt ruling

A search of the Supreme Court's Facebook page led to the original press release, which was posted by the court on July 17 (archived link).

It summarises a court ruling, penned by Justice Marvic Leonen, dismissing indirect contempt petitions against political analyst Richard Heydarian, House of Representatives member Percival Cendana and Presidential Adviser Larry Gadon (archived link).

The petitions were filed against the trio over remarks they made criticising the court's 2025 decision that struck down an earlier impeachment complaint against Duterte on procedural grounds. 

The false posts misrepresented the reference to an impeachment complaint being declared unconstitutional as pertaining to the ongoing proceedings in the Senate.

In the earlier Duterte v. House of Representatives decision from July 2025, the Supreme Court found that the impeachment proceedings violated the Constitution's prohibition against subjecting an official to multiple impeachment proceedings within a one-year period (archived link).

The court found that the criticism of the judiciary over its decision constituted protected political speech under the Constitution, and did not amount to indirect contempt.

It said "public discussions on matters of paramount public interests should be free" and that people should be given "the widest latitude to express their opinions without fear of being subsequently punished".

The court cited its earlier ruling on the impeachment proceedings to explain the remarks that gave rise to the dismissed contempt petitions.

AFP has previously debunked other misinformation related to Duterte's impeachment proceedings.