THE Quezon City Regional Trial Court (QC-RTC) has denied Vice President Sara Duterte’s motion seeking the inhibition or voluntary recusal of Judge Maria Angelica De Ramos from handling her criminal case for grave threats.
In an order dated September 14, 2026, De Ramos, presiding judge of QC-RTC Branch 98, said Duterte’s motion lacked merit.
“All told, absent any clear and convincing evidence of actual bias, prejudgment, or an improper connection that reasonably calls the undersigned’s impartiality into question, the undersigned sees no cogent reason for her to inhibit or recuse herself from hearing these cases,” De Ramos said.
Duterte’s lawyers filed the motion on September 10, accusing the court of manifest partiality, bias and favoritism after it allegedly assisted the prosecution in establishing probable cause and admitted evidence that was not included in the prosecution’s original submission.
Because Duterte’s motion for inhibition was filed one day before her scheduled arraignment, the court deferred the September 11 proceedings pending resolution of the motion.
In a statement, Duterte’s legal counsel Paul Lawrence Lim confirmed receipt of the court order denying their motion.
“The Vice President will exercise all available remedies. We also received the court’s order requiring both parties to strictly comply with the sub judice rule and to refrain from publicly discussing the merits of the case,” Lim said.
“We will continue to comply, consistent with the Vice President’s respect for the rule of law,” Lim added.
Duterte is facing three counts of grave threats filed by the Department of Justice arising from her controversial remarks during an online press conference in the early hours of November 23, 2024, concerning President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
An irate Duterte said she had already contracted someone to kill Marcos, Araneta-Marcos and Romualdez if she herself were killed.
Duterte made the statement after the House Committee on Good Government and Public Accountability, which was investigating alleged irregularities in the use of confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP), ordered the transfer of her chief of staff, Undersecretary Zuleika Lopez, from the House of Representatives detention facility to the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City.
The committee had cited Lopez in contempt on November 20, 2024, for “undue interference” after she sent a letter to the Commission on Audit (COA) asking it not to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking audit reports on the OVP’s confidential funds.
Duterte posted bail on September 5, a day after the court issued an arrest warrant against her over the three counts of grave threats. / TPM