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Now on his third and final term, Iloilo Representative Lorenz Defensor leads the prosecution's sub-group on the impeachment article related to Sara Duterte's apparent threat against President Marcos
Iloilo 3rd District Representative Lorenz “Noy” Defensor is one of the more powerful figures in the House of Representatives in the 20th Congress, serving as the second-in-command to Majority Leader Sandro Marcos in the rules committee.
But the Visayan lawmaker finds himself in a brighter spotlight because of his role in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
Defensor is one of the 11 public prosecutors in the high-stakes trial, and is also the team leader in the fourth article of impeachment — which also happened to be the first presented by the prosecution team.
The impeachment article assigned to him alleges that Duterte committed culpable violation of the Constitution, betrayal of public trust, and other high crimes for issuing an apparent death threat against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, and former speaker Martin Romualdez.
“Accountability must apply to all or none at all. At the heart of this impeachment proceeding lies a fundamental question for all of us — can we continue to trust one of the highest constitutional offices to a public official who, on multiple occasions, purposely, and willfully, and repeatedly resorted to threats of violence against the very institutions that she swore to uphold and protect?” Defensor said in his opening speech on July 7.
Defensor graduated with a degree in political science at the University of the Philippines, after which he finished law at the University of Santo Tomas.
Early in his professional career, Defensor became a legal officer for SMC Power Holdings Corporation, and then a senior partner at the Salazar Enrile Defensor & De Mata Law Offices.
Defensor was born into politics, and is a member of the Defensor dynasty that has been part of the elective fabric of the province since the 1990s.
His father, Arthur Defensor Sr., was a critic of the dictatorship of the late strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos, and after the 1986 EDSA uprising, Corazon Aquino named him education undersecretary and commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, the agency tasked to go after the Marcos family’s ill-gotten wealth.
The Defensor patriarch became governor of Iloilo for 18 non-consecutive years, between 1992 and 2019. Lorenz’s brother, Arthur Defensor Jr., is currently in charge of capitol.
Lorenz Defensor is the second cousin of former lawmaker and environment and housing chief Mike Defensor, who is currently in detention for plunder charges in connection with his undeclared campaign donation to Senator Rodante Marcoleta. The senator’s undeclared donations, including Mike Defensor’s, amounted to at least P75 million.
In 2016, politics came knocking on the Iloilo native’s doors. Lorenz won a seat in the provincial board, before succeeding his brother as representative of Iloilo’s 3rd District in 2019.
Defensor is now on his third and final term. He is currently the senior deputy majority leader, a position his father held in the 13th Congress.
He once expressed support for the passage of an anti-dynasty bill in Congress, but was not listed as an author in the House-approved final version, which drew criticism over its apparent toothless provisions.
Pending bills he primarily authored in the 20th Congress include a proposed P200-daily wage increase for minimum wage workers in the private sector, a proposed prohibition on the naming of public infrastructure after elected public officials within five years after their death, a proposed inclusion of the study of the Constitution as a subject in senior high school curriculum, and a proposed strengthening of the Commission on Human Rights.
Defensor is a known supporter of former vice president Leni Robredo, having joined her on stage at her presidential campaign in Western Visayas in 2022. Although Robredo has ruled out a second bid in 2028, Defensor expressed hopes in May that Robredo could still be convinced to run.
Defensor was first elected to the impeachment trial’s prosecution panel in 2025, but the proceedings did not push through last year after the Supreme Court declared Duterte’s impeachment by the House as unconstitutional.
“What the people want to hear is: How did you spend all that money from confidential and intelligence funds? And a straight answer from her would answer all the questions. This could have been answered long ago, even during the committee hearings. What all the members of Congress and the committee want is a straightforward answer when it comes to accountability and transparency,” Defensor had said in 2025.
Defensor was again elected to the same role in May 2026, right after the House transmitted the latest impeachment articles to the Senate. He is a member of the National Unity Party, which once expressed reservations to the possibility of impeaching Duterte for a second time.
Despite being a public prosecutor in the trial, Defensor stayed mostly on the sidelines during the presentation of the fourth impeachment article, letting private prosecutor Amando Virgil Ligutan examine the House’s first batch of witnesses.
This, however, does not mean that Defensor isn’t actively working behind the scenes.
“We give the credit to our head prosecutor in the person of Congressman Lorenz Defensor who really worked painstakingly to make sure that we will be able to present all the necessary evidence thoroughly, completely, in Article 4,” lead prosecutor Jinky Luistro said on July 15. – 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.
