Who is Lorna Kapunan, private prosecutor in Sara Duterte impeachment trial?

The celebrity lawyer is no stranger to handling high-profile cases and lawyering for controversial public figures

Lorna Kapunan is perhaps the most recognizable name on the list of private lawyers who make up the prosecution panel in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Her first major appearance in the high-stakes affair happened on Tuesday, July 14, when the lawyer manifested the prosecution’s intent to withdraw Office of the Vice President chief of staff Zuleika Lopez from their witness list. 

Kapunan is one of the first people enlisted by the House in their team. When the House first impeached Duterte in 2025, Kapunan expressed her desire to participate in what she had described then as the “trial of the century.” 

“It is our duty to stand for what is right. It is our duty as lawyers to stand for justice, and we see that this whitewashing, we see that this burying of evidence, we see that this brazen violation of the Constitution, and the principle of accountability is being violated,” Kapunan said in an interview with DZMM at the time. 

There’s no surprise that Kapunan chose a career in law. After all, she is the daughter of Lino Mejia Patajo, a former Supreme Court associate justice, whom Kapunan fondly remembers as her “anchor and moral compass in life and in law.”

A political science and law graduate from the University of the Philippines, Kapunan began her career as senior associate at ACCRALAW in 1978. She stayed there until 1986, after which she began managing her own firms. Today, it is known as the Kapunan and Castillo Law Offices, which she founded in 2011. 

She is the widow of former trial court judge Eduardo Ronen Kapunan, whom she lost to cancer in 2001. Her son died from leukemia two years later, a tragedy that inspired her to co-found a support group for mothers who lost their children. 

Kapunan prides herself as a women’s rights advocate, and was even chairperson of the United Nations Development Fund for Women. But  she also once drew criticism for representing controversial male clients, such as Dr. Hayden Kho, and Kris Aquino’s ex-husband James Yap. 

The celebrity lawyer is no stranger to handling cases that captured national attention. These include:

• The West Tower Condominium vs. First Philippine Industrial Corporation (FPIC) case: Kapunan served as counsel for the petitioners who complained about a pipeline causing hazardous leakage. The case is known for triggering the Supreme Court’s first ever writ of Kalikasan.  
• Pork barrel scam queen Janet Lim Napoles’ serious illegal detention case, which Kapunan withdrew from as lead counsel in 2013 due to “difference in opinion” with another lawyer on Napoles’ team.
• A class suit where she represented Philippine Airlines flight stewardesses, who sued the airline for compulsorily retiring them at 55 years old while their male counterparts could retire at 60. 
• The fatal hazing case of Horacio Castillo III, whose family she represented. A Manila court convicted her for unjust vexation over remarks she made while working on the case.
• The missing cockfighters case, in which she briefly lawyered for businessman Charlie “Atong” Ang. 

Kapunan also cultivated political ambitions. She ran for senator in 2016 as part of the slate of then-senatorial aspirant Grace Poe, but only placed 29th after receiving over a million votes. 

Kapunan’s legal career brought her beyond the courtroom and into the broadcast studio, as she also served as a television host for various shows, such as Aliw23 TV’s “Laban Para sa Karapatan”, DZRJ TV’s “Legally Speaking,” and TV5’s “FACE 2 FACE.”

On Wednesday, July 15, Senator Pia Cayetano called out Kapunan for offering a lengthy explanation on why the prosecution dropped Lopez from the witness list. Some senator-judges claimed such statements could affect the impeachment court’s impartiality.

“When we talk about balance and when we talk about impartiality, that same standard should apply not only to the prosecutors, not only to the defense, but to the senator-judges,” Kapunan later said. – Rappler.com

Isabel Victorino is a fourth year AB Communication student at Ateneo de Manila University and a writer for its school publication The GUIDON. She is currently a Rappler intern.