The authority of Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero to run the impeachment proceedings against Vice President Sara Duterte is now at the center of a fresh legal challenge, with her camp asking the Supreme Court to halt the trial until the question is settled.
In a Very Urgent Manifestation with Motion filed on Tuesday, July 7, Duterte, lawyer Israelito P. Torreon, and several other petitioners urged the high court to issue a status quo ante order and other interim relief that would suspend the Senate proceedings while a related constitutional dispute remains undecided, Manila Bulletin reported. The filing folds into two petitions the group had earlier brought before the Court.
The petitioners want the justices to bar “the Impeachment Court, its officers, agents, representatives, and all persons acting under its authority, direction, supervision, or in concert with it, from conducting or continuing the trial proper, receiving evidence, ruling on objections, issuing orders, enforcing processes, or otherwise giving further operative effect to the impeachment trial of petitioner Vice President Sara Z. Duterte until the antecedent constitutional question concerning the authority of the presiding officer is resolved.”
At the heart of the motion is the June 3, 2026 Senate session, where 12 senators declared all leadership posts vacant and reorganized the chamber. That gathering also amended the Rules of Procedure on Impeachment Trials — the same amended rules invoked when Escudero was installed to preside. The petitioners argue that because Escudero’s authority traces directly to those contested proceedings, his standing as presiding officer is under a cloud that the Court has yet to clear.
The filing draws a sharp line between the Senate as a lawmaking body and the Senate sitting as an impeachment tribunal. Once senators take their oath as triers, the petitioners contend, they operate under Article XI of the Constitution and the rules governing impeachment, not as ordinary legislators. On that reasoning, they insist that a legislative chamber cannot rewrite the structure of an already-constituted impeachment court in the middle of a live case.
“An ordinary legislative proceeding cannot, by midstream amendment, alter the adjudicatory structure of an already constituted impeachment tribunal in a pending case, especially where the amendment affects the very officer who will preside over the trial,” Duterte said in the manifestation, as quoted by Manila Bulletin.
The petitioners warned that letting the trial run its course while the underlying question hangs unresolved risks a later finding that the entire proceeding was void. Each session, they said, deepens the danger that the case could collapse for lack of a validly constituted and validly presided court.
The manifestation frames the fix as constitutionally required rather than merely convenient, asking the Court to preserve the status quo so that judicial review does not become an after-the-fact verdict on proceedings already carried far along. The petitioners stressed that a respondent in an impeachment case is owed not just any trial, but one before the proper tribunal led by an officer whose authority is lawfully grounded.
Escudero was elected presiding officer on Monday, July 6, on a 12-8 vote over objections from the Senate minority led by Alan Peter Cayetano. It is the second time he has held the role, having presided over the aborted 2025 proceedings when he served as Senate president. The Cayetano bloc separately petitioned the Court on June 30, questioning the validity of the same June 3 session and how the phrase “majority of all members” should be counted.
