The friction between two seasoned lawyers on opposite sides of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment became personal on Wednesday, August 12, when Salvador Panelo suggested that fellow attorney Lorna Kapunan step away from courtroom work, saying at 74 she had reached an age to slow down.
Panelo, 79, offered the remark after attending the Senate proceedings in person. During the session, Kapunan, who serves as a private prosecutor, repeatedly locked horns with defense counsel Kristine Ferrer as the two traded objections through much of the day.
Presiding Officer Chiz Escudero had already flagged the tension between the pair, appealing to both not to let what he called a “seeming generational divide” inflame the courtroom, a warning that came after Kapunan objected to Ferrer’s questioning of state auditor Xylene Mae del Campo of the Commission on Audit. Panelo picked up on that same generational framing, agreeing with Escudero’s read before advising Kapunan to rest from lawyering.
That advice carries a particular irony. Roughly five months earlier, Panelo himself was pursuing a fresh legal role abroad, filing to become an accredited counsel at the International Criminal Court while former president Rodrigo Duterte was facing a confirmation of charges hearing in The Hague over crimes against humanity tied to his anti-drug campaign. At the time, Duterte’s lead lawyer remained Nicholas Kaufman.
Panelo has said the accreditation would let him formally join Duterte’s defense and, crucially, gain entry to the ICC detention facility where the former president is held. As he put it in an earlier interview, being on the defense team is what would allow him inside to see Duterte. His son, Salvador Paolo Panelo, filed the application on his behalf, a process the ICC’s requirements for counsel could take an estimated eight months to complete.
The day’s hearing itself centered on the audit commission’s disallowance of confidential funds spent by the Office of the Vice President in 2022 and 2023, with Del Campo fielding cross-examination and questions from senator-judges before being excused from the stand.
