'Katawa-tawa': Ridon picks apart another Team Duterte strategy
Published May 1, 2026 11:25 pm
At A Glance
- Rep. Terry Ridon has criticized Vice President Sara Duterte's defense team for questioning the impeachment process in the Supreme Court while simultaneously preparing to participate in the Senate trial, calling the stance contradictory and in bad faith.
- Ridon advised Duterte's lawyers to withdraw their petition before joining the trial and warned that dismissing evidence without rebuttal undermines their readiness.
- The House justice panel has already found probable cause in two impeachment complaints and is set to draft articles of impeachment, which, once adopted in plenary, will trigger the Senate's constitutionally mandated impeachment trial.
Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon (Ellson Quismorio/ MANILA BULLETIN)
Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon has highlighted another perceived lapse in the legal strategy of impeachment respondent Vice President Sara Duterte’s defense team.
And this one is so big that Ridon believes the Duterte camp shouldn't even be allowed to join the impending Senate impeachment trial, unless it can get its act together.
“Hindi puwedeng sabay, kinukwestyon ninyo ang proseso sa Korte Suprema, pero gusto ninyong makilahok sa parehong prosesong iyon (You cannot question the process in the Supreme Court while at the same time wanting to participate in that very process)," Ridon said on Friday, May 1.
“Either you recognize the process, or you don’t. You can’t do both," added the House Committee on Justice member and prospective impeachment trial prosecutor.
Ridon was referring to team Duterte's existing challenge to the House impeachment proceedings, which remained pending before the SC.
What makes the party-list lawmaker scratch his head is that the Vice President’s lawyers have recently been pointing to the Senate impeachment trial as the venue where they would answer the alleged impeachable offenses that have been brought up in the justice panel hearings.
But the Senate impeachment trial is very much part of the process that the respondent's camp is opposing. Thus, the glaring contradiction must be addressed.
“If you have sued the very institutions that will hear and try the case—including the Senate—then participating in that process without withdrawing your petition places you in a clearly contradictory, bad-faith legal position,” said Ridon.
He reckoned that the Vice President's lawyers must clarifiy their stance, or risk being made the butt of jokes.
“Dapat bawiin nila ang kanilang petisyon bago sila lumahok sa paglilitis. Kung hindi, magiging katawa-tawa ang defense panel dahil malinaw na kinikilala rin nila ang bisa ng prosesong kanilang kinukwestyon,” he noted.
(They must withdraw their petition before joining the trial; otherwise, the defense panel becomes laughable because it clearly acknowledges the validity of the process it is questioning.)
The outspoken Ridon was gracious enough to give Duterte’s lawyers further advice. He says discrediting evidence without rebutting it raises serious questions about the camp’s readiness for trial.
“That has always been the tactic. When you cannot disprove a piece of evidence, you assail it. If I were them, I would be closely studying the documents and other pieces of proof instead of minimizing their value.”
The Duterte camp never attended any of the four hearings on probable cause that was held by the justice panel last May 25, April 14, 22, and 29. During the April 29 hearing, the committee declared the existence of probable cause in the two active impeachment complaints against Duterte.
The committee is expected to prepare the articles of impeachment from these two complaints and make it part of the committee report. The Vice President will be effectively impeached once the committee report gets adopted in House plenary.
The Senate is constitutionally mandated to hold the impeachment trial forthwith after it receives the articles of impeachment.