Voting results showed 255 of 317 lawmakers backed the impeachment complaint, comfortably surpassing the one-third threshold required under the Philippine constitution to elevate the case to the Senate.

Duterte faces allegations including misuse of public funds, accumulation of unexplained wealth and threats against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the first lady and a former House speaker. She has denied wrongdoing, while her legal team has described the complaint as defective and politically motivated.

If convicted in a Senate trial, Duterte would be removed from office and permanently barred from holding elected office, a penalty that could derail any attempt to seek the presidency in 2028.

The impeachment vote came minutes after the Senate elected longtime Duterte ally Alan Peter Cayetano as Senate president, replacing Vicente Sotto III in a 13-9 vote with two abstentions.Cayetano, who served as foreign secretary under former president Rodrigo Duterte, denied the leadership change was linked to the impeachment proceedings.

“I do not blame you if you’re saying that the change in leadership was due to the impeachment, it was not,” Cayetano told senators after the vote.Under Philippine law, the Senate acts as an impeachment court once charges are transmitted from the House.

A guilty verdict requires support from two-thirds of senators.The latest impeachment effort follows a failed attempt in June 2025, when the Senate convened an impeachment court in televised proceedings before returning the case to the House, a move critics described as a de facto dismissal.Political dynamics in the upper chamber have shifted since then.

Candidates aligned with Duterte performed strongly in the May 2025 midterm elections, winning five of 12 contested Senate seats and improving her chances of surviving a trial.Among senators present during Monday’s proceedings was Ronald dela Rosa, the former national police chief who played a central role in Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.

Dela Rosa had largely stayed out of public view since November last year.Dela Rosa and Senator Christopher Go are among current and former officials named by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court as alleged co-perpetrators in the crimes against humanity case linked to Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown.

Dennis Coronacion, chair of the political science department at University of Santo Tomas, said before the vote that Duterte’s acquittal remained a realistic possibility because of support from newly elected senators.“There are new senators who have been very vocal that they are supporting the vice president,” he told AFP.

Nearly 1.5 million voters were registered across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, while around 70,000 were eligible to vote in Gaza’s Deir El-Balah area, according to the Ramallah-based Central Elections Commission.

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m., with voting taking place under the shadow of continued conflict, institutional paralysis, and long-standing frustration over the absence of national elections.

Footage from Al-Bireh in the West Bank and Deir El-Balah in Gaza showed election workers preparing polling centers as residents arrived to cast ballots in what many described as a symbolic rather than transformative process.

Most electoral lists were aligned with President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular-nationalist Fatah movement or were running as independents.There were no lists affiliated with Hamas, which governs much of Gaza and remains Fatah’s principal political rival.In many municipalities, including Ramallah and Nablus, only one list was submitted, resulting in automatic victory without a contested vote.

Where competition existed, Fatah-backed candidates faced independent lists, some led by figures associated with leftist factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.Mahmud Bader, a businessman from Tulkarem in the northern West Bank, said he would vote despite believing the outcome would have little practical effect.

“Whether candidates are independent or partisan, it has no effect and will have no effect or benefit for the city,” he said.“The occupation is the one that rules Tulkarem. It would only be an image shown to the international media — as if we have elections, a state or independence.

”Tulkarem has been under heightened Israeli military pressure, with two adjacent refugee camps remaining under military control for more than a year.In Gaza, the vote in Deir El-Balah marked the first local electoral exercise since Hamas won the 2006 legislative elections and later took control of the enclave in 2007.

Political analysts said the Palestinian Authority’s decision to hold voting only in Deir El-Balah reflected both logistical limits and a cautious test of public sentiment in post-war Gaza.Jamal Al-Fadi, a political scientist at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, said the limited vote served as an “experiment” because there had been no reliable post-war opinion polling.

Deir El-Balah was selected partly because it was one of the few areas in Gaza where much of the population had remained in place and not been displaced during more than two years of war.Farah Shaath, 25, said voting for the first time was emotionally significant despite the extraordinary conditions.

“Although it is unlike any election in the world, it is a confirmation of our continued existence in the Gaza Strip despite everything,” she said.The elections commission said polling staff in Gaza were recruited from civil society groups and that a private security company had been contracted to secure voting centers.

However, a commission source in Gaza said Hamas police insisted on overseeing security around polling stations through unarmed personnel in civilian clothing.

UN coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov praised the organization of the vote, calling it a “credible process” and saying the elections represented an important opportunity for Palestinians to exercise democratic rights during an exceptionally difficult period.

Abbas, now 90, has remained in office for more than two decades without re-election, despite repeated promises of legislative and presidential polls that have yet to materialize.

Saturday’s municipal vote, while limited in scope, reflects both the persistence of Palestinian civic institutions and the deep uncertainty surrounding the future of governance in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Prosecutors said in a statement that the new sentence was being pursued on charges of aiding the enemy, arguing that Yoon’s alleged actions were intended to “fabricate wartime conditions” and undermined national security.

The request comes after Yoon was sentenced to life imprisonment in February for leading what authorities described as an insurrection aimed at paralysing South Korea’s National Assembly.According to prosecutors, the drone operation heightened tensions with North Korea and led to the exposure of classified military information after the drones crashed, including details related to force capabilities.

The allegations were also reported by Yonhap news agency.Yoon has appealed his earlier conviction, maintaining that his decision to declare martial law was taken “solely for the sake of the nation.”The case adds to ongoing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, where the two Koreas remain technically at war.

Drone activity has been a recurring source of friction between the sides.Earlier this month, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret to Pyongyang following an investigation that found government officials had sent drones into North Korea in January.

In response, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described the statement as “wise behavior,” though prospects for improved relations diminished after North Korea resumed describing the South as its “most hostile” adversary.

Lee has pledged to repair inter-Korean relations by halting provocations associated with his predecessor and has indicated that a formal apology over the drone incidents may be considered.

The case, being heard at the Seoul Central District Court, is part of a series of legal proceedings against Yoon following his removal from office last year after a brief imposition of martial law that triggered political turmoil in the country.

Prosecutors allege the drone operation heightened military tensions with North Korea and risked exposing sensitive information about South Korea’s military capabilities after one of the drones crashed.

The charges include benefiting the enemy, a provision that can apply even without direct coordination if national security interests are harmed.

Yoon has denied the allegations, with his legal team stating he did not take any action that could provoke a military confrontation with North Korea.

The trial is one of eight cases currently involving Yoon, reflecting the legal fallout from his presidency and the controversial martial law declaration. The court is expected to issue a ruling at a later date.