A Facebook post about courtroom rules has become a courtroom matter all its own. On Day 19 of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, private prosecutor Amando Virgil Ligutan stood before the Senate Impeachment Court to defend the viral post the defense panel wants acted on, and his explanation boiled down to one line: he was not attacking anyone, he was teaching.
The post that started it
The trouble traces back to August 12, Day 15 of the trial, during the cross-examination of state auditor Xylene Mae Del Campo. Prosecution counsel Lorna Kapunan objected to defense counsel Kristine Ferrer cutting off the witness and pressing her for yes-or-no answers, noting that some questions cannot be answered that way and that misleading questions are barred. Ferrer replied that “it is allowed.” Roughly 30 minutes later, while the hearing was still running, Sison called out Ligutan for posting: “A principle all lawyers and law students know by heart: Misleading questions are not allowed even on cross-examination.”
Lead defense counsel Sheila Sison read the post as a swipe at Ferrer and called it bad taste and bad faith, arguing Ferrer had actually been defending leading questions, not misleading ones. She invoked Rule 18 of the impeachment court rules, which stops participants from commenting on the merits, and the sub judice warning came fast: presiding officer Francis Escudero declined to let Ligutan respond that day and flagged sanctions for repeat violations.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| Aug 12 | Kapunan clashes with Ferrer over her yes-or-no cross-examination of state auditor Xylene Mae Del Campo |
| Aug 12 | Ligutan publishes his misleading-questions reminder mid-hearing; Sison calls it bad faith; the court defers his reply |
| Aug 26 | The court allows his counter-manifestation; he argues correcting a mistake is never wrong |
| Aug 26 | Escudero reminds counsel to set the teacher role aside inside the trial, per the Senate Rules |
‘Teacher’s instinct kicked in’
When his turn finally came on Wednesday, Ligutan kept it pointed. In his counter-manifestation, he told the bench: “To the defense, the post is not about you. It is not personal. It is about the law that we all adhere to. Correcting a mistake is never wrong,” even if it happens online while a hearing is ongoing.
He explained his viral post by reaching for his other job: he is a law professor with students in Cebu and Diliman, and he said his ‘teacher’s instinct kicked in’ when a wrong statement about cross-examination risked going unchecked in open court. Nothing in the post touched the strength of anyone’s evidence or arguments, he added; it merely stated rules every law student memorizes. And he returned the defense’s own sermon: the defense cannot lecture him on humility while refusing to admit the mistake he says he corrected.
Escudero: the teacher hat stays at the door
Escudero met the argument halfway, then shut the gate. Yes, lawyers remain professors wherever they go, he said, but under the Rules of the Senate counsel in a live trial must “unbundle” that role: they cannot comment on the merits outside a fair and true report of proceedings. The Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability, he added, still binds them to courtesy toward the lawyer on the other side. Teaching, in other words, resumes after adjournment.
What it means for posts about live cases
The spat is a rare public look at the lines lawyers cannot cross online while a trial runs:
- No commenting on the merits beyond a fair and true account of what happened in the session
- Courtesy duties to opposing counsel survive the fiercest exchanges
- Violations can draw warnings or sanctions from the court itself
The Impeachment Court has not ruled on whether Ligutan’s post actually violated those rules; the trial rolled on to the evidence after his explanation. For more on where the case stands, see why the prosecution thinks 16 votes could convict, how the court handled a hostile witness ruling on Day 18, and the separate push to give regulators jurisdiction over social platforms.
