*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
While watching an impeachment proceeding, there was a particular scene that made me think deeply about how lawyers should behave inside an impeachment court. During cross-examination, instead of seeing what I expected to be a calculated and surgical questioning of a witness, what I saw appeared to me more like a "Taratitat" than a lawyer—ready to pull someone's hair out, aggressive, confrontational, firing questions as though the objective was to overwhelm the witness rather than carefully extract facts useful to the case. Then came another spectacle: a lead counsel seemingly gaslighting over a social-media post, focusing on narratives surrounding what somebody had posted and how it should supposedly be interpreted. Habang pinapanood ko iyon, napatanong ako: Ganito ba talaga dapat manalo ang isang abogado sa impeachment? Is the objective to destroy the witness, dominate the conversation, and win social media—or to systematically dismantle the case against the client?
Before anybody tells me, “Hindi ka naman abogado,” let me save them the effort.
I have never claimed to be one. I respect the years lawyers spend studying law, passing the Bar, learning procedure, reading jurisprudence, and developing actual courtroom experience. But being a non-lawyer does not mean that I watch these proceedings without an intellectual framework. As a multi-doctorate graduate whose academic journey has largely been built through research, I have spent many years reading, analyzing evidence, comparing arguments, questioning assumptions, and examining whether conclusions logically follow from facts. Legal research and reading the Constitution, laws, jurisprudence, and legal arguments have likewise become part of what I jokingly call my regular brain synaptogenesis.
I read because I enjoy thinking.
I question because research trained me to question.
And when I listen to legal arguments, I normally bring four things with me: common sense, logic, philosophy, and my own reading of the Constitution and the law.
Hindi ko kailangang magpanggap na abogado para magtanong kung logical ba ang isang argumento. The Constitution, after all, is not the private intellectual property of lawyers. It is the fundamental law of the Filipino people. Lawyers professionally interpret and argue the law, and courts authoritatively resolve legal controversies within their constitutional jurisdiction, but citizens have every right to read the Constitution, understand it, question government through it, and form reasoned opinions about how public power is exercised.
Through years of research and reading, I have also developed my own perspective on what a lawyer should strategically do in an impeachment proceeding if the objective is to persuade and ultimately win. Hindi ito paramihan ng alam na jurisprudence. Hindi ito palakasan ng boses. Hindi ito pagalingan mang-insulto ng witness. And certainly, it should not be a contest over who produces the most viral video clip.
So when I use the deliberately provocative phrase “stupid legal strategy,” I am not calling lawyers stupid. A lawyer can be exceptionally intelligent and still adopt a stupid strategy. A brilliant chess player can make a terrible move. A championship bowler can throw a terrible ball.
Intelligence does not make anyone immune from strategic mistakes.
Here are twelve that, from my perspective as a researcher and citizen, can become particularly dangerous in an impeachment court.
1. Treating Impeachment Like an Ordinary Criminal Trial
This, for me, is the mother of many mistakes.
Kapag nakikinig ka minsan sa arguments, parang ordinary criminal prosecution ang impeachment where the central question is whether somebody should be sent to prison.
But impeachment serves a different constitutional function.
Article XI of the 1987 Constitution identifies grounds for impeachment that include culpable violation of the Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, and betrayal of public trust. The Constitution also separately provides that a person convicted in impeachment remains liable to prosecution, trial, and punishment according to law.
That distinction should tell us something.
Removal from office is not imprisonment. Impeachment accountability is not identical to criminal liability.
Of course, fairness matters. Due process matters. Evidence matters. The rights of the respondent matter. But if a lawyer walks into an impeachment proceeding carrying exactly the same intellectual template used in an ordinary criminal trial, baka mali na agad ang mapa bago pa magsimula ang biyahe.
You may be an excellent driver.
But if you are following the wrong map, your driving skills will not take you to the correct destination.
2. Confusing Ordinary Courtroom Rules With the Constitutional Character of Impeachment
Rules matter. Procedure matters. Without rules, proceedings can become arbitrary.
But impeachment exists because the Constitution created it, and the Senate’s authority to try and decide impeachment cases comes from that same Constitution.
So my researcher instinct tells me to begin with the fundamental question:
What is impeachment constitutionally designed to accomplish, and what rules govern that particular proceeding?
Hindi puwedeng automatic assumption na kung ano ang ginagawa sa ordinary criminal courtroom ay eksaktong iyon din ang framework ng impeachment.
The applicable impeachment rules, constitutional requirements, fairness, and due process must all be respected. But procedure should help the constitutional process arrive at a reasoned judgment.
It should not bury the constitutional question underneath technicalities.
3. Confusing Admissibility With Weight
Sometimes legal terminology makes something relatively simple sound unnecessarily mysterious.
There is a question of whether evidence may properly be considered. There is another question of how much persuasive value that evidence deserves.
Those are related, but they are not necessarily identical.
Yet sometimes the argument appears to become:
“There is a problem with how this evidence was presented; therefore, everything contained in it must be false.”
Sandali.
Logic does not automatically bring us there.
A document may be challenged. Authentication may be disputed. Reliability may be questioned. Context may be incomplete. The tribunal may ultimately give something little or no weight, depending on the applicable rules and the evidence surrounding it.
But “there is a problem with this evidence” and “the underlying event never happened” are two different propositions.
Research teaches us not to confuse them.
4. Thinking That Without a Firsthand Witness, Nothing Happened
Firsthand knowledge can be extremely important. A witness should not claim personal knowledge of something he or she never actually perceived.
But there is a logical leap that bothers me:
“This particular witness did not personally see it.”
Therefore:
“It never happened.”
Hindi ganoon ang logic.
Complex events are frequently reconstructed through multiple sources—documents, official records, communications, financial transactions, electronic evidence, circumstances, institutional processes, and witnesses establishing different parts of the factual chain.
The better questions are: What exactly can this witness competently establish? What can the documents establish? Can they be authenticated? What corroborates them? What contradicts them?
Absence of one eyewitness is not automatically absence of evidence.
Otherwise, any wrongdoing committed without an audience would become impossible to establish.
5. Treating Documentary and Circumstantial Evidence as Automatically Worthless
Everyday life itself teaches us circumstantial reasoning.
You wake up. The road is wet. The roofs are dripping. People outside are carrying umbrellas. The sky is dark.
Hindi mo nakita iyong ulan mismo.
But you can reasonably infer that it rained.
Naturally, an impeachment trial demands far greater evidentiary discipline than this simple illustration. Conclusions cannot be based merely on imagination. Documents need proper foundations where required. Circumstances must logically connect. Evidence must be tested.
But truth is often reconstructed from pieces.
One document may connect with another. A financial transaction may correspond with a communication. A witness may corroborate part of a documentary trail. Multiple circumstances may reinforce one conclusion.
A strong lawyer should therefore attack weak evidence precisely where it is weak.
Hindi iyong basta sasabihin na walang eyewitness, kaya wala nang nangyari.
That is not strategy.
That is oversimplification.
6. Winning Technical Objections but Failing to Explain What Actually Happened
This is perhaps where ordinary Filipinos become most frustrated.
“Objection!”
Sustained.
Another objection.
Sustained.
Then another.
Sustained again.
Congratulations. Three victories.
But after an hour of brilliant technical maneuvering, the Filipino watching at home may still ask:
“Okay. Pero saan napunta ang pera?”
“Sino ang nag-utos?”
“Bakit may ganitong dokumento?”
“Bakit nangyari ito?”
Or the simplest question of all:
“Ano ba talaga ang nangyari?”
Technical objections are legitimate. They can protect fairness and prevent unreliable or improper material from influencing a proceeding.
But objections cannot permanently substitute for an explanation.
If the allegation is false, demonstrate why it is false.
If the transaction is legitimate, explain it.
If the document is misleading, provide the proper context.
If the prosecution’s theory is impossible, dismantle it logically.
Because eventually, repeatedly preventing questions from being answered may generate another question:
Why doesn’t anyone want the question answered?
You can win ten objections and still lose the story.
And in impeachment, losing the story can eventually mean losing the argument about public trust.
7. Attacking the Witness While Leaving the Evidence Standing
This takes me back to the scene that partly inspired this article.
Cross-examination can be tough. Sometimes it must be. Witnesses may be mistaken, inconsistent, biased, evasive, or even dishonest. A lawyer has every reason to expose those weaknesses when relevant.
But there is a difference between cross-examining a witness and merely attacking a human being.
Kapag puro sigaw, sarcasm, pang-iinsulto, intimidation, at theatrics na, I begin asking what all that aggression actually proves.
Suppose you destroy Witness A.
Fine.
What happens to Document B?
What happens to Financial Record C?
What happens to Communication D?
What happens to Witness E who independently corroborates part of the story?
You may destroy the credibility of the messenger without destroying independently supported evidence.
Parang pinunit mo ang sobre, sinigawan mo iyong nagdala ng sulat, pinalayas mo pa siya sa bahay—but you never answered whether what was written in the letter was true.
A strong lawyer attacks evidence with evidence.
Noise is not rebuttal.
8. Using Due Process as a Substitute for a Defense
I strongly believe in due process.
Even somebody I completely disagree with deserves fairness. Because justice that applies only to people we like is not justice at all.
But due process should mean:
“Give me a fair opportunity to answer.”
It should not become:
“Find every possible reason so that I never have to answer.”
Magkaibang-magkaiba iyon.
Due process protects citizens against arbitrary exercise of power. It is fundamental precisely because government power can destroy lives when left unchecked.
But once a fair process is provided, there remains a substantive question.
What is the answer to the allegation?
Protect due process.
Demand fairness.
Challenge unreliable evidence.
Question unconstitutional procedures.
But eventually, when the process permits a fair answer, answer the accusation.
Due process should help us reach justice.
It should not become an endless hiding place from accountability.
9. Forgetting the Words “Betrayal of Public Trust”
For me, these may be among the most important words in the entire impeachment discussion:
Betrayal of public trust.
The Constitution does not describe impeachment solely in terms of conduct already resulting in criminal conviction.
Why?
Because occupying the highest offices of government demands something beyond merely staying outside prison.
The Constitution tells us that public office is a public trust.
That statement is not only legal. It is philosophical.
The people surrender enormous powers to public officials. They allow them to manage public resources, command institutions, influence policy, and exercise authority in the name of the Republic.
In return, those officials carry an extraordinary obligation of accountability.
Kaya hindi lahat puwedeng matapos sa tanong na:
“Anong criminal law ang nilabag?”
There is another constitutional question:
“Was public trust betrayed in a manner falling within the constitutional grounds for impeachment?”
A lawyer who answers only the criminal-law question may therefore be answering a different examination.
10. Performing for Social Media Instead of Persuading the Senator-Judges
Welcome to the era of TikTok jurisprudence, Facebook prosecution, YouTube defense, and thirty-second constitutional scholarship.
Someone makes a dramatic statement.
A clip is uploaded.
One side screams:
“Wasak!”
The other uploads another clip:
“Binasag!”
Thousands of reactions follow, and suddenly constitutional accountability becomes entertainment.
This is why the social-media episode I watched bothered me.
When a lead counsel appears to spend valuable intellectual energy gaslighting, reframing, or obsessing over a social-media post, I ask whether that exercise actually advances the client’s defense or simply feeds the political audience watching outside.
A Facebook post is not the Constitution.
Likes are not evidence.
Shares are not jurisprudence.
Trending hashtags are not votes of senator-judges.
The lawyer must therefore ask:
Am I persuading the tribunal, or am I entertaining my political audience?
Because those objectives are not necessarily the same.
A lawyer can win Facebook and lose the case.
11. Forgetting What Kind of Tribunal You Are Standing Before
Senator-judges are not ordinary trial judges.
They are senators exercising a special responsibility assigned to them by the Constitution.
That means impeachment exists at the intersection of constitutional law, evidence, procedure, accountability, and political judgment.
Some people become uncomfortable whenever impeachment is described as political.
But political does not automatically mean lawless.
The Constitution itself assigned the Senate the power to try and decide impeachment cases.
Therefore, a lawyer must understand the forum.
Imagine the greatest basketball player in the world entering a tennis court carrying a basketball.
Brilliant athlete.
Wrong game.
Likewise, a lawyer may be brilliant in criminal litigation and still misunderstand impeachment if every question, objection, and strategy is viewed exclusively through the lens of an ordinary criminal trial.
Knowing law is one thing.
Knowing where, why, and how to apply it is another.
12. Trying to Prove That the Lawyer Is the Smartest Person in the Room Instead of Proving the Case
And finally, we arrive at perhaps the most human weakness of intelligent people:
Ego.
Quote ten cases.
Recite jurisprudence.
Use Latin.
Correct everybody.
Humiliate the witness.
Deliver a dramatic lecture.
Gaslight the other side.
Generate a viral clip.
Receive applause from supporters.
Wonderful.
Now here comes my irritating non-lawyer question:
Did you answer the allegation?
Because there is an enormous difference between displaying intelligence and exercising wisdom.
Intelligence memorizes.
Wisdom understands.
Intelligence knows how to construct an argument.
Logic determines whether the conclusion actually follows.
Intelligence can defeat another person in debate.
Philosophy asks whether winning the debate brought us any closer to truth.
And common sense asks:
“Ano ba talaga ang nangyari?”
That is why I watch impeachment not as a lawyer, because I am not one, but as a researcher, a student of governance, a reader of the Constitution, and a citizen exercising the same right every Filipino possesses: the right to think.
And this brings me to the simplest analogy I can offer.
The Lawyer Must Think Like a Bowler
In the end, I believe a lawyer in an impeachment court should think like a bowler.
Bowling looks simple when viewed from a distance. There is a ball. There are ten pins. Knock them down.
But anyone who truly understands bowling knows that underneath that apparent simplicity is a game of extraordinary precision.
You study the lane.
You calculate your angle.
You control your approach.
You time your release.
You observe the breakpoint.
You adjust to the lane condition.
You determine the appropriate pektus.
And every ball you throw should have a purpose.
Hindi puwedeng bara-bara.
You cannot stand on the approach holding the ball and command:
“Mag-strike ka!”
The ball will not obey your rhetoric.
You cannot intimidate the pins.
You cannot cross-examine the lane.
You cannot gaslight the bowling ball because it did not follow your intended narrative.
And when your opponent makes a strike, you cannot win by spending the next five frames attacking him.
You have to throw your own ball.
That is precisely how I believe a lawyer should approach impeachment.
Every question should have a target.
Every objection should have a purpose.
Every cross-examination should move the defense somewhere.
Every document should fit within a theory.
Every argument should bring the ball closer to the pocket.
Hindi iyong magtatanong ka merely because you want to embarrass the witness.
Hindi iyong sisigaw ka because aggression looks powerful on television.
Hindi iyong gagawa ka ng eksena because you know your supporters will turn it into a viral clip.
Those things create noise.
Noise does not create a strike.
A championship bowler does not win by attacking the person playing on the next lane. He wins by understanding his own lane and consistently executing the better shot.
If his first ball misses, what does he do?
Does he scream at the pins?
Does he accuse the lane of bias?
Does he blame the audience?
Does he attack the opponent?
No.
He studies what happened.
Was the angle wrong?
Was the release late?
Was the speed too high?
Was there too much pektus?
Did the lane condition change?
Then he adjusts.
That is strategy.
And that should also be lawyering.
If the witness is lying, expose the lie with precision.
If the document is unreliable, show exactly why.
If the allegation is false, dismantle it piece by piece.
If the evidence has another explanation, present the alternative explanation clearly.
If the prosecution’s theory is logically impossible, show the senator-judges exactly where the logic collapses.
Do not merely attack your opponent.
Make your shot.
Because a bowling ball does not strike because the bowler shouted at it.
A lawyer does not win because he shouted at a witness.
A senator-judge does not become persuaded because counsel humiliated somebody.
And evidence does not disappear because social media applauded.
The objective of cross-examination is not merely to make the witness uncomfortable. It is to obtain something useful for the case.
The objective of an objection is not to show everybody that you memorized the rules. It is to protect the client’s legal position.
And the objective of impeachment advocacy is not to become the most famous lawyer of the afternoon.
The objective is persuasion through evidence, logic, credibility, constitutional reasoning, and strategy.
A good bowler also understands one painful reality: sometimes you throw what feels like the perfect ball and still leave one pin standing.
What does a professional do?
Adjust.
Hindi niya sisigawan ang pin.
Hindi niya sisisihin ang lane.
Hindi niya aawayin ang kalaban.
He prepares for the spare.
Perhaps lawyers can learn something from that humility.
You may lose an objection.
A witness may give an unexpected answer.
A senator-judge may ask a difficult question.
A piece of evidence may suddenly hurt your theory.
Do not panic.
Do not compensate with theatrics.
Do not attack simply because you have run out of answers.
Adjust.
Find another angle.
Return to the evidence.
Rebuild the argument.
Make the next shot better.
I repeat: I am not a lawyer. I am a multi-doctorate graduate whose life has been immersed in research, and someone who has spent years reading legal materials, constitutional provisions, jurisprudence, and laws partly as an academic discipline and partly as exercise for the brain. Lawyers may disagree with me, and they are welcome to do so. Intellectual disagreement is healthy.
But being a non-lawyer does not prevent me from recognizing logic, strategy, precision, or the absence of them.
The Constitution belongs to all of us.
And perhaps sometimes the citizen watching from outside the courtroom can ask the simplest question that those consumed by legal combat may forget to ask.
Does this strategy actually make sense?
Because in impeachment, as in bowling, you cannot simply order the ball to strike.
You cannot intimidate the pins into falling.
You cannot blame your opponent for your bad release.
And you cannot win consistently through bara-bara.
You need the right angle.
The right timing.
The right pektus.
The right adjustment.
And above all, the right strategy.
Precision. Purpose. Logic. Adjustment. Strategy.
That is how a bowler makes a strike.
And perhaps that is also how a lawyer should try to win an impeachment case.
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