Title: Antero J. Pobre Vs - Sen. Miriam Defensorsantiago: Notes, If Any
Title: Antero J. Pobre Vs - Sen. Miriam Defensorsantiago: Notes, If Any
Title: Antero J. Pobre Vs - Sen. Miriam Defensorsantiago: Notes, If Any
MIRIAM DEFENSORSANTIAGO
A.C. no 7399 DATE: 25 August 2009
PONENTE: J. VELASCO JR TOPIC: Parliamentary freedom of speech and debate
SEC 11
FACTS OF THE CASE:
Antero J. Pobre invites the Court's attention to Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago's speech
delivered on the Senate floor. To Pobre, the statements reflected a total disrespect on the part of the
speaker towards then Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and the other members of the Court and
constituted direct contempt of court. Accordingly, Pobre asks that disbarment proceedings or other
disciplinary actions be taken against the lady senator. Senator Santiago, through counsel, does not deny
making the statements. She, however, explained that those statements were covered by the constitutional
provision on parliamentary immunity, being part of a speech she delivered in the discharge of her duty as
member of Congress or its committee. The purpose of her speech, according to her, was to bring out in
the open controversial anomalies in governance with a view to future remedial legislation. She averred
that she wanted to expose what she believed "to be an unjust act of the Judicial and Bar Council [JBC]",
The immunity Senator Santiago claims is rooted primarily on the provision of Article VI, Section 11
of the Constitution, which provides: "A Senator or Member of the House of Representative shall, in all
offenses punishable by not more than six years imprisonment, be privileged from arrest while the
Congress is in session. No member shall be questioned nor be held liable in any other place for any
speech or debate in the Congress or in any committee thereof".
STATEMENT OF ISSUE/S:
Whether or not Sen. Santiago may be charged for her comments on the Judiciary.
HOLDING
NO. As American jurisprudence puts it, this legislative privilege is founded upon long experience and arises as a
means of perpetuating inviolate the functioning process of the legislative department. Without parliamentary
immunity, parliament, or its equivalent, would degenerate into a polite and ineffective debating forum. Legislators
are immune from deterrents to the uninhibited discharge of their legislative duties, not for their private
indulgence, but for the public good. The privilege would be of little value if they could be subjected to the cost and
inconvenience and distractions of a trial upon a conclusion of the pleader, or to the hazard of a judgment against
them based upon a judge's speculation as to the motives. The parliamentary immunity’s purpose as discussed in
Osmeña, Jr. v. Pendatun "is to enable and encourage a representative of the public to discharge his public trust
with firmness and success" for "it is indispensably necessary that he should enjoy the fullest liberty of speech and
that he should be protected from resentment of every one, however, powerful, to whom the exercise of that
liberty may occasion offense". Therefore, in this case her privilege speech is not actionable criminally or in a
disciplinary proceeding under the Rules of Court.
notes, if any:
Excerpt- Sen. Miriam’s speech:
“. . . I am not angry. I am irate. I am foaming in the mouth. I am homicidal. I am suicidal. I am humiliated,
debased, degraded. And I am not only that, I feel like throwing up to be living my middle years in a country of
this nature. I am nauseated. I spit on the face of Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and his cohorts in the
Supreme Court, I am no longer interested in the position [of Chief Justice] if I was to be surrounded by idiots. I
would rather be in another environment but not in the Supreme Court of idiots . . . .”