The defense team of Vice President Sara Duterte is considering asking the Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order (TRO) to halt the impeachment proceedings while it weighs a possible petition challenging the ruling on the conviction threshold.

Defense counsel Michael Poa said Wednesday that seeking a TRO is among the options being considered by the defense, but the team must first assess its potential consequences and discuss the next steps with Duterte.

“That’s an option. That’s definitely an option. But of course, we’ll have to see the pros and cons muna,” Poa said.

Poa said the defense has yet to fully assess the possible repercussions of seeking or not seeking a TRO.

“So definitely everything’s on the table,” he said.

The defense counsel also stressed that any possible move before the Supreme Court should not be interpreted as an attack on the integrity of the impeachment court.

“We don’t want to cast any aspersions against the impeachment court dahil siyempre once you question the integrity of the court, parang nanggugulo na kasi tayo,” Poa said.

Poa noted that the defense had previously manifested that its participation in the impeachment proceedings would be ad cautelam, or made with caution to preserve its rights.

He said the manifestation was made before the court heard from amici curiae, or friends of the court, last week.

According to Poa, the defense wants to ensure that its participation in the proceedings would not be interpreted as a waiver of its right to question issues arising from the proceedings.

“Para lang hindi masabi that because we participated, we have waived any of our rights na kwestyonin ang mga naging proceedings,” he said.

The possible Supreme Court move comes after the impeachment court ruled to exclude certain senators from the computation of the voting threshold for Duterte’s conviction, effectively changing the number of votes required for a conviction.

The defense has argued that the threshold should remain at 16 votes, based on the full 24-member Senate.

On Wednesday, the Senate impeachment court voted to reduce the number of votes needed to convict Vice President Sara Duterte, reversing its earlier ruling that set the threshold at 16 votes.