Merceditas Gutierrez resigned from her post as ombudsman on April 29th, ten days before the she was due to face an impeachment trial in the Senate (the upper house of Congress). Just over a month earlier, on March 22nd, the House of Representatives (the lower house) had voted overwhelmingly to impeach Ms Gutierrez for her failure to secure any convictions in relation to cases of corruption that are alleged to have occurred under the previous president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. A close ally of Ms Macapagal Arroyo, Ms Gutierrez had been due to remain in post until late 2012. Her role as the Philippine state's prosecutor of officials suspected of corruption will now be taken over by an appointee of the current president, Benigno Aquino.

Ms Gutierrez's decision to resign made it easier to remove one of Ms Macapagal Arroyo's most important allies than had seemed likely. The ombudsman can be removed only through impeachment by Congress (the legislature). Although there had been an overwhelming vote for impeachment in the lower house, with 212 votes in favour to 44 against, the result of a trial in the upper house was less predictable. In contrast with the administration's large majority in the House of Representatives, only four of the 23 members of the Senate are members of Mr Aquino's Liberal Party. A guilty verdict requires two-thirds support. Another consequence of Ms Gutierrez's decision to pre-empt her impeachment trial is that the Senate will not now be embroiled in hearings that would certainly have delayed progress on the legislative agenda.

However, Ms Gutierrez's resignation has also deprived the Philippines of an opportunity for a public examination of the allegations against the previous president. Mr Aquino had originally hoped to achieve this through a "truth commission", which he established in July 2010, but the Supreme Court ruled that the commission was unconstitutional. The impeachment trial would have been an alternative means of investigating the accusations levelled against Ms Macapagal Arroyo, which include claims of corruption surrounding a broadband contract signed by the government and a Chinese state-owned company, ZTE, in 2007, and the allegation that funds from the Department of Agriculture were used to finance Ms Macapagal Arroyo's election campaign in 2004. There is speculation that Ms Gutierrez resigned to protect Ms Macapagal Arroyo.