The movie star lawyer isn’t any stranger to dealing with high-profile instances and lawyering for controversial public figures
Lorna Kapunan is probably probably the most recognizable title on the listing of personal legal professionals who make up the prosecution panel within the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
Her first main look within the high-stakes affair occurred on Tuesday, July 14, when the lawyer manifested the prosecution’s intent to withdraw Workplace of the Vice President chief of workers Zuleika Lopez from their witness listing.
Kapunan is among the first individuals enlisted by the Home of their group. When the Home first impeached Duterte in 2025, Kapunan expressed her need to take part in what she had described then because the “trial of the century.”
“It’s our obligation to face for what is true. It’s our obligation as legal professionals to face for justice, and we see that this whitewashing, we see that this burying of proof, we see that this brazen violation of the Structure, and the precept of accountability is being violated,” Kapunan stated in an interview with DZMM on the time.
There’s no shock that Kapunan selected a profession in regulation. In spite of everything, she is the daughter of Lino Mejia Patajo, a former Supreme Courtroom affiliate justice, whom Kapunan fondly remembers as her “anchor and ethical compass in life and in regulation.”
A political science and regulation graduate from the College of the Philippines, Kapunan started her profession as senior affiliate at ACCRALAW in 1978. She stayed there till 1986, after which she started managing her personal corporations. At the moment, it is called the Kapunan and Castillo Legislation Workplaces, which she based in 2011.
She is the widow of former trial court docket decide Eduardo Ronen Kapunan, whom she misplaced to most cancers in 2001. Her son died from leukemia two years later, a tragedy that impressed her to co-found a help group for moms who misplaced their kids.
Kapunan prides herself as a girls’s rights advocate, and was even chairperson of the United Nations Growth Fund for Girls. However she additionally as soon as drew criticism for representing controversial male shoppers, equivalent to Dr. Hayden Kho, and Kris Aquino’s ex-husband James Yap.
The movie star lawyer isn’t any stranger to dealing with instances that captured nationwide consideration. These embody:
- The West Tower Condominium vs. First Philippine Industrial Company (FPIC) case: Kapunan served as counsel for the petitioners who complained a couple of pipeline inflicting hazardous leakage. The case is understood for triggering the Supreme Courtroom’s first ever writ of Kalikasan.
- Pork barrel rip-off queen Janet Lim Napoles’ critical unlawful detention case, which Kapunan withdrew from as lead counsel in 2013 as a result of “distinction in opinion” with one other lawyer on Napoles’ group.
- A category swimsuit the place she represented Philippine Airways flight stewardesses, who sued the airline for compulsorily retiring them at 55 years previous whereas their male counterparts may retire at 60.
- The deadly hazing case of Horacio Castillo III, whose household she represented. A Manila court docket convicted her for unjust vexation over remarks she made whereas engaged on the case.
- The lacking cockfighters case, wherein she briefly lawyered for businessman Charlie “Atong” Ang.
Kapunan additionally cultivated political ambitions. She ran for senator in 2016 as a part of the slate of then-senatorial aspirant Grace Poe, however solely positioned twenty ninth after receiving over 1,000,000 votes.
Kapunan’s authorized profession introduced her past the courtroom and into the published studio, as she additionally served as a tv host for varied exhibits, equivalent to Aliw23 TV’s “Laban Para sa Karapatan”, DZRJ TV’s “Legally Talking,” and TV5’s “FACE 2 FACE.”
On Wednesday, July 15, Senator Pia Cayetano referred to as out Kapunan for providing a prolonged clarification on why the prosecution dropped Lopez from the witness listing. Some senator-judges claimed such statements may have an effect on the impeachment court docket’s impartiality.
“Once we speak about steadiness and after we speak about impartiality, that very same customary ought to apply not solely to the prosecutors, not solely to the protection, however to the senator-judges,” Kapunan later stated. – Rappler.com
Isabel Victorino is a fourth 12 months AB Communication scholar at Ateneo de Manila College and a author for its college publication The GUIDON. She is presently a Rappler intern.
