Jinky Luistro, rising star

These days, Congresswoman Jinky Luistro just brushes aside and laughs off questions about aspirations for higher office.

“I haven’t thought about that yet,” Luistro answered when asked about the possibility of a 2028 senatorial bid, during her Rappler Talk interview that aired on May 27.

It’s not a foolish question. The congresswoman, now 50, rose from being a 19th Congress neophyte carrying an uncommon surname in Philippine politics, to a breakout star leading the prosecution team in the trial of the decade.

How she will come out of the contentious, possibly months-long, Senate proceedings on the alleged offenses committed by Vice President Sara Duterte could dictate the future of her political career, and, arguably, her life.

Life before elective office

Even at a young age, the spectacle of impeachment was never far from Luistro’s world.

Hernando Perez, a former Batangas lawmaker, justice secretary, and private prosecutor in the impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada in 2000 to 2001, was a mentor and boss to Luistro as early as her maiden years. She was his student at the University of Batangas, where Luistro also taught law subjects and where she completed her law degree.

Luistro recalled that when the trial of Estrada was unfolding on national television, she was just about to enter the law profession, taking her Bar exam.

“(Perez) influenced me so much into becoming what I am right now,” Luistro told Rappler, recalling that her former boss argued about Estrada’s financial documents during the trial, which preceded the second People Power Revolution that ousted the president.

“It inspired me a lot to see that there is this process in holding impeachable officials or the highest official of the land responsible to the Filipino people,” she added.

After the uprising installed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as Estrada’s successor, Luistro worked as consultant at the Department of Justice then led by Perez, and subsequently became a lawyer-consultant for an Arroyo-era special presidential task force that sought to investigate irregularities within the Department of Finance (DOF).

In that role, Luistro probed into a fraudulent scheme involving the issuance of tax credit certificates to a company that submitted fake receipts and had non-existent suppliers and buyers. She won the case at the Supreme Court in 2014, which affirmed the dismissal of 11 DOF officials involved. Luistro told Rappler it was the first time her name — still reflected in the resolution as Gerville Reyes — became part of a High Court ruling.

Luistro had been municipal administrator of her hometown Mabini under the mayorship of Rowell Sandoval in the 2000s. She regained the post when her husband Noel, whom she married in 2005, won the mayoral election in 2016.

POLITICAL COUPLE. Mabini Mayor Noel Luistro and Batangas 2nd District Representative Jinky Luistro renew their vows in a politically star-studded ceremony in February 2026. Screenshot from Luistro’s Facebook

Bid for Congress

Like many politicians, Luistro said entering politics was not the original plan.

But in 2020, a case was filed against her husband for alleged rape, a non-bailable offense. She insisted it was a fabricated case meant to derail the political momentum of her spouse, who was supposed to run for congressman of their district in the 2022 elections.

“His name was tarnished even before the campaign started. That is the reason why I was asked by our leaders in Batangas 2nd District to continue the congressional bid which my husband started,” she said.

The case has been dismissed, but that difficult chapter of her life continues to haunt her family, as opponents use it to undermine her credibility.

“This is fabricated because there is no actual complainant. The name was a fictitious personality that you will never see,” Luistro said. “In spite of that, a warrant of arrest was issued against my husband. That was a very challenging moment to our family and even to our constituents.”

“I hid my husband not to evade the law…(but) to prepare my husband to go through this process. As soon as all of us [were] prepared, I made my husband do the voluntary surrender. He was arraigned. He appeared before the court. He presented his own evidence until we were able to successfully prove that the case was totally fake that led to the dismissal of the case against him,” she added.

Luistro won the 2022 congressional race in her district by a mere two-percentage points against the daughter of term-limited incumbent Raneo Abu.

Path to spotlight

ALLIES. Batangas 2nd District Representative Gerville ‘Jinky’ Luistro takes a selfie with Speaker Martin Romualdez in April 2024. Photo from Luistro’s Facebook

Luistro had a quiet first year in the House, with no committee chairmanship or plenary post to boost her profile. That was until Leyte 1st District Representative Martin Romualdez, then speaker of the House, “discovered” her investigative skills.

Luistro was placed in the dangerous drugs and public accounts committee, panels that would later make up the highly sensational — but also politically divisive — quad committee, which investigated the atrocities and criminalities that took place during Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency.

After the 2022 election alliance between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte fully crumbled, Luistro, like other administration-allied congressmen, finally ramped up their oversight of the Duterte family.

Luistro, however, had a surgical approach in her interpellations, a style that captured the public’s attention.

Luistro was present during the only budget hearing attended by Duterte in August 2024. During the proceedings, the congresswoman drew the ire of the Vice President after questioning her written request that state auditors withhold the release of an audit report on her office’s confidential expenditures.

When the Duterte patriarch made a rare appearance before the House quad committee in November 2024, it was also during her interrogation of the former chief executive that he agreed with her characterization that his statement taking responsibility for the anti-drug campaign amounted to an “extrajudicial confession of guilt.”

2025 elections

Luistro was among the 215 lawmakers who signed the first impeachment complaint against the Vice President in February 2025, but a supposed Senate trial was aborted after the Supreme Court declared the House process unconstitutional.

Luistro was already part of the original prosecution team in 2025, locking her place in the growing lineup of anti-Duterte political forces.

Duterte’s first impeachment took place months before the midterm polls, which was — in many ways — a proxy war between the Vice President and then-speaker Romualdez. Duterte, with an axe to grind, personally visited the turfs of key Romualdez allies in Congress to campaign for their opponents.

Not everyone survived Duterte’s revenge tour: then-majority leader Mannix Dalipe and then-congressman Marvin Rillio lost their respective races in Zamboanga City and Quezon City. Manila 6th District Representative Benny Abante initially lost his reelection bid, and was only able to keep his seat after the Commission on Elections (Comelec) blocked the victory of his rival. Manila 3rd District Representative Joel Chua edged out his Duterte-backed opponent by a razor-thin margin.

Luistro, however, not only survived, but also delivered a commanding victory, beating her rival, former congressman Ranie Abu, by 24-percentage points in one of the most closely watched local races of the midterms.

It was an expensive and messy fight, and insiders said both doubled down on the distribution of financial aid to voters in the run-up to the campaign period. Vote-buying complaints have been hurled at both candidates; Luistro said hers have already been junked by the Comelec.

Presiding officer

At the start of the 20th Congress in mid-2025, Luistro was appointed chairperson of the justice committee, putting her on the driver’s seat of any impeachment complaint that would be referred to her panel.

2026 came and that became a reality — she presided over impeachment hearings involving the country’s two highest officials.

The first one was the case against President Marcos, which her committee quickly dismissed due to supposed lack of substance. The second one was the case against the Vice President, which took two months of deliberations before her committee declared probable cause to indict her, elevating the complaint to the plenary for its approval. She and 256 other lawmakers voted yes to the articles of impeachment, indicting the Vice President for a second time.

Duterte took aim at the House from every available angle to challenge the legitimacy of the process. Luistro, in the process, caught strays.

Duterte, for example, questioned the House’s supposed “double standards” when it came to the treatment of the impeachment cases against hers and Marcos. She also flagged Luistro’s use of “mini-trial” to refer to the clarificatory hearings of the House, and used them to argue that they were nothing but a “fishing expedition.”

On social media, Duterte’s loyal followers attacked Luistro, accusing her of accepting kickbacks, and calling her a Romualdez lapdog.

“I do not deny that I am associated [with] the former speaker,” Luistro told Rappler. “But that is definitely separate and apart from this constitutional duty. Not because I am associated [with] the former speaker, I will not be able to do my constitutional duty.”

Preparing for the trial

PREPARATIONS. Luistro and other prosecutors listen to Akbayan Representative Chel Diokno discuss the rules of procedure and evidence in an impeachment trial. Photo courtesy of Bicol Saro Representative Terry Ridon

As the trial draws near, Luistro is catching up on readings on the rules of the court, attending lectures, and participating in mock trials.

She was initially tasked with leading the impeachment article concerning Duterte’s alleged misuse of confidential funds, but later handed the assignment to a colleague to ease her workload as lead prosecutor.

One can only surmise that Luistro is preparing not just her wits for the trial, but also her sanity.

Her colleague in the prosecution panel, Congresswoman Leila de Lima, spent years in jail over trumped-up drug charges. De Lima was known to have drawn the ire of the former president for investigating the Davao Death Squad during her time as Commission on Human Rights chief.

Retaliation is a logical consequence that awaits the political clan’s opponents, should the Dutertes be given another chance to reclaim the Palace.

So does Luistro ever worry about the Dutertes’ apparent appetite for vengeance?

“Whatever apprehensions I have are overpowered by the mandate of the Constitution,” Luistro said.

The trial will decide the future of the country, as the punishment on the table against the female Duterte, who already declared her bid for Malacañang in 2028, is immediate removal and perpetual disqualification from public office.

Luistro and her team are coming into the trial with the odds stacked against them, given the number of Duterte-allied senator-judges. She knows that, but she also hopes to win the fight not just in the impeachment court, but also in the court of public opinion.

“I want to be remembered as an ordinary woman from Batangas, but strong enough to defend the best interests of the Filipino people,” Luistro told Rappler.

History has its eyes on her.

RISING STAR. Luistro chairs the justice committee hearing on Duterte’s impeachment case. Photo from House justice committee

– Rappler.com