Short answer. Yes. An application for a protection order is heard ahead of other cases. Section 20 of RA 9262 provides that hearings to determine the basis of such applications shall have priority over all other proceedings, and courts must hear them above all other business.
What the law says
Ex parte and adversarial hearings to determine the basis of applications for a protection order under this Act shall have priority over all other proceedings.
RA 9262, Section 20 — Priority Of Applications. Read the full provision →
Protection orders jump the queue
Section 20 of Republic Act No. 9262 gives applications for a protection order a special place on the calendar. Both ex parte hearings — where the court can act quickly on the applicant's showing alone — and adversarial hearings, where both sides are heard, shall have priority over all other proceedings. The section goes further and directs that barangay officials and the courts schedule and conduct these hearings above all other business, and, if necessary, suspend other proceedings in order to hear them. A protection order request is not made to wait its turn behind an ordinary docket.
Why speed is built into the law
The whole point of a protection order is to stop harm before it happens or continues. A woman or child facing violence cannot safely wait months for relief while a crowded docket grinds forward. By ranking these applications first, the law recognises that delay itself can be dangerous — even fatal. The priority rule turns urgency into a legal command: the court must move the application to the front, and where its calendar is full, it must set other matters aside to hear it. Protection is treated as time-sensitive, not routine.
What priority does and does not guarantee
Priority is about when the application is heard, not about the result. Being heard first does not mean the order will automatically issue; the court still weighs whether the basis for a protection order exists. What the rule guarantees is prompt access — that the courtroom door opens quickly. It also reaches beyond the courts: barangay officials handling barangay protection orders are bound by the same duty to act above other business. The applicant's job is to bring the request; the law's job is to see that it is not buried in the pile.
Making the priority real
In practice, an applicant should file the request clearly labelled as an application for a protection order so the priority attaches from the outset. Because the same law allows a protection order to be applied for as an independent action or as incidental relief within another case, flagging the urgency helps the court apply Section 20 correctly. If a court or barangay official nonetheless treats the application as ordinary and lets it languish, that delay runs against the express command of the statute, and it can be raised.