*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
I am writing this not as a lawyer reciting doctrines or a political actor choosing sides, but as an ordinary citizen who has watched, with quiet unease, how power begins to change its posture once it no longer expects to be questioned. In everyday life, we know this feeling well. We feel it when a teacher refuses correction, when a leader stops listening, when authority grows uncomfortable with dissent. Questioning is not disrespect. It is how trust breathes. It is how institutions stay human. And yet, lately, Filipinos have been made to feel that when it comes to the Supreme Court of the Philippines, silence is the safest response, and questioning is something to fear. That quiet fear unsettles me more than any ruling ever could.
The unease deepened when impeachment complaints were filed against Vice President Sara Duterte. For most Filipinos, the Constitution is not a thick book of footnotes. It is a simple promise. One of those promises is that impeachment belongs to Congress because it is political by nature—because accountability at the highest level must be argued openly, imperfectly, and publicly by people we elect. Impeachment is not meant to be clean or convenient. It is meant to be honest. When the Court stepped in early and issued a ruling that effectively closed that process before it could fully live, many citizens felt something shift inside them. It felt as if a door meant for public judgment had been quietly locked.
It was then that Senate President Vicente Sotto III spoke. He did not shout. He did not threaten. He did not incite defiance. He simply questioned the ruling and warned that impeachment—one of the few remaining tools for holding powerful officials to account—had been weakened to the point of near impossibility. He spoke not as a provocateur, but as the head of a co-equal branch, voicing concern over constitutional balance. And almost immediately, a chilling thought entered public conversation: could he be punished for speaking at all?
That question became painfully real when, on February 13, 2026, a petition was filed seeking to cite him for indirect contempt because of his criticism of the Court’s ruling. When I read his response, what struck me was not anger, but restraint. He said he would wait for the official copy of the ruling before answering. Then he asked a question that lingered in the air like an unanswered prayer: Ako lang ba? Is he alone? What about those who share his view—retired justices, respected law professors, legal scholars, historians—people whose lives have been spent defending the Constitution, not undermining it? What about retired Supreme Court Justice Adolf Azcuna, Fr. Ranhilio Aquino, scholars from the University of the Philippines College of Law, law deans, veteran lawyers, and historians like Manolo Quezon III—all of whom pointed out what they believed were factual errors and warned of judicial legislation? If questioning the Court is contempt, do we silence all of them too? Or is the real discomfort not with contempt but with being questioned?
The following day, February 14, 2026, Senate President Sotto released a formal press statement. It was not dramatic. It was not hostile. It was almost weary in its clarity. He described the contempt petition as a nuisance suit, devoid of legal and factual basis, more spectacle than substance. But what mattered more was his quiet insistence on something basic and deeply human: that disagreement is not disobedience, that criticism is not obstruction, and that speaking one’s mind—especially on constitutional matters—is not a crime.
He reminded the public that indirect contempt, under Rule 71 of the Rules of Court, requires acts that actually impede or obstruct the administration of justice. He did none of those things. He simply disagreed. And that disagreement, he said, is protected speech under the Constitution. He cited cases where the Court itself acknowledged that criticism of judicial acts is punishable only when it poses a clear and present danger and that courts are not fragile institutions meant to be shielded from dissent. Reading those words, one cannot escape the irony: the Court’s own doctrines are now being used to defend the right to question the Court.
What moved me most was not the legal precision of his statement, but its humility. Despite being targeted, he did not attack back. He said he would respond formally only when asked by the Supreme Court. That is not the voice of defiance. That is the voice of someone who still believes in institutions, even while questioning their direction.
At its core, this issue is painfully simple. Contempt of court was never meant to protect judges from criticism. It exists to protect the administration of justice from real harm. When we blur that line, when we begin to punish speech instead of obstruction, we teach people that silence is safer than honesty. And once that lesson is learned, it does not stay confined to politicians. It reaches teachers, journalists, students, and ordinary citizens who begin to wonder whether speaking up is worth the risk.
The Senate President does not speak merely for himself. He speaks as the presiding officer of the Senate of the Philippines, an institution that the Constitution of the Philippines deliberately placed on equal footing with the judiciary. The Supreme Court interprets the law. The Senate, along with the House of Representatives, makes the law and exercises political judgment. They are meant to challenge each other—not to demand silence from one another. When questioning becomes punishable, equality gives way to hierarchy, and dialogue gives way to fear.
Impeachment sits at the heart of this fear because it is the Constitution’s most human mechanism of accountability. It asks uncomfortable questions about trust and leadership. That is why it belongs to Congress. When judicial rulings preempt that process before it can even breathe, something essential is lost. The response from the Senate President was not rebellion. It was grief for a shrinking constitutional space.
This is not about VP Sara Duterte. It is not about idolizing SP Tito Sotto. It is about whether we still believe that power can be spoken to without consequences. If senators, retired justices, professors, historians, and ordinary citizens must whisper instead of speak, then democracy becomes a performance, not a practice.
I return, finally, to the truth that should never have been controversial: questioning the Court is not contempt. It is how constitutional balance survives. Courts are respected—but they are not worshipped. And if Congress or the Senate President can no longer question the Supreme Court, the question answers itself. No one speaks for the people anymore.
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