‘The Supreme Court stood firm. Not because it was easy. But because it had to. At times, the bravest act is not to strike but to hold. Not to punish but to pause. Not to please the crowd but to protect the country.’
THERE are moments in our history when the loudest noise isn’t the shouting in the streets, but the silence of a Court that refuses to be shaken.
On July 25, 2025, the Supreme Court of the Philippines handed down a decision. It did not trend. It did not roar. But it stood its ground. The Court nullified the impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte not out of favor, but out of fidelity.
At the center of that ruling was Justice Marvic Leonen. He was not defending a name. He was defending a line in our Constitution, one that reads, simply: Only one impeachment complaint may be initiated against the same official within a year.
It’s a rule many forget, until it becomes inconvenient. Between December 2024 and February 2025, four separate complaints were filed against the Vice President. One was transmitted. The others were dismissed or archived. But all four had been initiated. And initiation, as defined in our jurisprudence since Francisco v. House of Representatives in 2003 and Gutierrez v. Committee on Justice in 2011, begins at the act of filing and referral, not at transmission, not at success. The Court did not invent the rules. It remembered them.
The vote was unanimous. Thirteen justices in agreement, two inhibiting. Not one dissent. Not one shadow of hesitation. And among those who concurred were many appointed during the Duterte presidency itself. If allegiance were the motive, this would not be the result. But law is not loyalty. It is a structure. It is restraint. And Leonen, who often writes in dissent, this time spoke for the entire Court. Justice Leonen has long stood for a jurisprudence of principle. Whether in lonely dissents or majority opinions, he has reminded us that the Court’s highest allegiance is not to public approval, but to the enduring values of the Constitution. In a commencement speech at the University of the Philippines, he once told graduates: “Do not seek the applause of the many if it means betraying the quiet of your conscience.”
He reminded us that impeachment is not a numbers game. It is not a popularity test. It is a constitutional safeguard, wrapped in limitation. If left unchecked, it can be used not to protect the people, but to slowly bleed institutions dry. Some called the decision technical. But all good law is technical; it must be, so that it can outlive tempers. So that it can still speak when we forget how.
This was not the Court shielding a Vice President. This was the Court shielding the rules that make even her removal possible but only when done properly. Because if the rules can be bent for one, they can be bent for all. And if impeachment becomes a revolving door, no official, however guilty or innocent, will ever truly govern again. Only survive.
Leonen’s writing carried no venom. Only clarity. No theatrics. Only conviction. He has always believed in the slow work of justice, the kind that resists the heat of the moment in favor of the long breath of history. He has said, time and again, that justice must be patient. That it must be fair, especially when we don’t want it to be.
This column is not about Sara Duterte. It is not a defense of her views or her vice presidency. It is a defense of the idea that the law cannot be twisted each time we are angry. The rule of law matters most when it protects those we dislike. That is the test. Not when it affirms our beliefs, but when it challenges them. And yes, we must hold our officials accountable. But that accountability must not mimic vengeance. Otherwise, justice becomes a mirror of the very thing it claims to cure. The Supreme Court stood firm. Not because it was easy. But because it had to.
At times, the bravest act is not to strike but to hold. Not to punish but to pause.
Not to please the crowd but to protect the country. When Justice Leonen wrote the Court’s ruling, he wasn’t shielding a political figure. He was shielding the Constitution from erosion.
And when the Court agreed, it was not acting out of loyalty to power. It was loyal to something far more enduring: the idea that laws, like bridges, are only tested when the flood comes.
That flood came. And the Court did not move.
It refused to flinch.
