A Facebook post by one of the prosecutors in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial has pushed the Senate impeachment court toward formal action over how the case is being discussed outside the chamber.
Presiding Officer Francis “Chiz” Escudero told the court on Wednesday that he is preparing a ruling, a warning, and an order addressing possible breaches of Rule 18, the provision that bars the presiding officer, senator-judges, prosecutors, the respondent, witnesses, and their lawyers from publicly commenting on the substance of a pending impeachment case.
Escudero indicated the problem was not confined to a single post. He said he had instructed the clerk of court to keep watch over the public remarks made by counsel on both sides over the past week, and that his own observation over recent weeks pointed to one side repeatedly stepping past what the rules permit, according to Newswatch Plus. He added that he had raised the matter with both panels roughly two weeks earlier, urging them to name spokespersons drawn from outside the prosecution and defense teams — advice he said they chose not to take.
The dispute traces back to a courtroom clash during the questioning of a Commission on Audit witness. As defense counsel Kristine Ferrer cross-examined the witness, private prosecutor Lorna Kapunan objected that one of the questions was misleading. Ferrer answered that such questions are allowed — a remark Sison later told the court was meant to refer to leading questions, which are permitted on cross-examination, rather than to misleading ones.
Shortly after that exchange, private prosecutor Amando Virgilio Ligutan wrote on Facebook: “A principle ALL lawyers and law students know by heart: Misleading questions are NOT allowed even on cross-examination.” The post named no one.
Lead defense counsel Sheila Sison took the matter to the court, arguing the message was aimed at Ferrer and mischaracterized her position. Sison called the timing improper because the court was still in session, and framed the setting as one that demands mutual courtesy among members of the bar. “One may argue that this isn’t about the merits of the case,” she said, before pressing that the post nonetheless ran against Rule 18. She was blunt about the prosecutor’s decision to post at all: “And yet we have a private prosecutor immediately taking to social media and posting this, implying something against the defense counsel. We will not have this.”
Lead House prosecutor Gerville Luistro asked that Ligutan be allowed to explain himself, but Escudero turned the request down, citing a plenary session set for that afternoon. The presiding officer said Ligutan would instead be heard when proceedings resume on Monday, August 17.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Ligutan defended the post and said it carried no ill intent, telling them in Filipino that misleading questions are not permitted and that he would not take the message down because the principle is grounded in the Rules of Court, as reported by Philstar. Section 10 of Rule 132 of the Rules of Evidence prohibits misleading questions to witnesses.
