Fact check: VP Sara's lead counsel Sheila Sison is not Jose C. Sison's daughter

MANILA, Philippines — A viral Facebook post falsely claims Sheila Sison, Vice President Sara Duterte's lead counsel, is the daughter of "Ipaglaban Mo!" host Jose C. Sison.

In a July 10 post, a Facebook user with over 448,000 followers shared a side-by-side photo of Jose and Sheila with the text, "Like father, like daughter."

The post's caption read:

Kaya pala sobrang galing, dati pinapanood ko yan si Atty, Sison sa kapag may katuwiran ipaglaban mo. #everyone #followers #dds

Rating: This is false.

Facts

There is no publicly available information stating that Jose and Sheila have a father-daughter relationship, despite sharing a surname.

In a column published in The Philippine Star in 2012, Jose referred to Joyce as his "beloved and only daughter," indicating he had no other daughters.

Part of his "Cherished event" column read:

On March 10, 2003, at about 15 minutes before two o’clock in the afternoon, Joyce our oldest daughter and the loving and caring sister of five brothers, after hanging on to life — but not afraid of death — finally ended her short but meaningful and fruitful earthly life and began another life of eternal bliss as she moved into the beatific House of our Lord in heaven.

In a separate 2024 column, Jose mentioned the names of his six children: Joyce, Jopet, Joel, Jay, Jolly and Jaybee.

Part of the column titled "My ‘Feb-Ibig’" read:

At the start, we were both working to earn a living. But when our marital love started bearing fruits through the birth of our children, Josie decided to give up her job and devote her life to being a housewife and mother to our six children – Joyce, who has already passed on to eternal life, Jopet, Joel, Jay, Jolly and Jaybee.

Jose's published list of his children, with all their names beginning with the letter "J," does not include Sheila.

Publicly available information on Sheila identifies her as a partner at Fortun, Narvasa & Salazar Law and a graduate of San Sebastian College of Law – Recoletos. No publicly available records indicate that she is related to Jose.

Why we fact-checked this

The impeachment trial of the vice president opened on July 6, with Sen. Chiz Escudero as the presiding officer.

In her opening speech, defense counsel Sheila highlighted how Duterte was elected by more than 32 million Filipinos and invoked the Supreme Court's July 2025 ruling that voided the first impeachment for grave abuse of discretion.

Since publishing, the viral Facebook post has garnered more than 314,000 reactions, 17,900 comments, and 13,000 shares.