Filipinos online questioned whether Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano understood his role as a senator-judge after he pressed the Senate impeachment court to watch the entire two-hour recording tied to Vice President Sara Duterte’s alleged threats, rather than the short excerpt prosecutors wanted to present.
The dispute surfaced on July 7, 2026, the second day of Duterte’s trial, as the House prosecution panel and the vice president’s defense counsel argued over how much of the footage should enter the record. At issue is material connected to the fourth article of impeachment, which alleges grave threats, an assassination plot, and inciting to sedition against the government.
Prosecutors moved to play a roughly two-minute clip drawn from a press conference that runs about two hours. Defense lawyer Carlo Joaquin Narvasa pushed back, demanding the full recording be shown for what he called complete context. Cayetano sided with airing everything, telling the court he would “rather watch the whole thing and get it over with than allow prosecution to pick out portions that go into the center of the controversy.” Presiding officer Sen. Francis Escudero settled the matter by ruling that each side may decide how to present its own evidence and that there was nothing improper about the prosecution offering shorter clips.
Explaining his reasoning, the senator said watching the material in full first would guard against bias. “Kung pinanood ko muna ‘yung 30 minutes, then may ie-emphasize na 30 seconds… pinapanood muna ‘yung buo and then saka papanoorin ‘yung maiksi na ine-emphasize para walang pre-judgment,” he said.
The intervention prompted a wave of commentary from people following the broadcast, many reading it as an attempt to slow the proceedings. Radio and podcast host DJ Chacha wrote, “Parte ba ng defense si Alan Peter o senator judge? Nalilito ako o baka siya ang nalito?” One viewer posted, “Senator judge ka ha, not counsel of the defense, chill.” Another urged, “Please orient Allan [to] his role as senator-judge, akala niya kasi lawyer siya ni Sarah,” while a separate user commented, “Kala ko judge sila… Parang part siya ng defense.”
The skepticism draws on Cayetano’s standing as a known Duterte ally, a positioning that has shadowed him since the trial’s opening. On July 6, he and his sister, Sen. Pia Cayetano, spent more than an hour objecting to the election of a presiding officer other than the Senate president, a fight the chamber resolved by voting 12-8 to install Escudero.
In an impeachment trial, a senator serves as a juror weighing the case rather than advocating for either party. The footage at the center of the exchange captured Duterte’s remarks from a Nov. 23, 2024 online press conference, in which she said: “Pag pinatay ako patayin mo si BBM, si Liza Araneta and Martin Romualdez. No joke, nag bilin na ako ma’am,” referring to the president, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
A conviction on any article requires 16 votes from the 24-member court, an outcome that would strip Duterte of office and open the door to a permanent bar from public service.
