The argument of the respondent is based on Article VI Section
POBRE vs. DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO 11 which states that:
(A.C. No. 7399, August 25, 2009) "A Senator or Member of the House of Representative shall, in PETITIONER all offenses punishable by not more than six years imprisonment, be privileged from arrest while the Congress is Petitioner Antero Pobre made aware to the court the contents of in session. No member shall be questioned nor be held liable Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s speech delivered on the in any other place for any speech or debate in the Congress senate floor. The following excerpts are the ones in question: or in any committee thereof."
x x x I am not angry. I am irate. I am foaming in the mouth. I ISSUE
am homicidal. I am suicidal. I am humiliated, debased, degraded. And I am not only that, I feel like throwing up to be WON Miriam Defensor-Santiago can be charged for her living my middle years in a country of this nature. I am comments on the Judiciary nauseated. I spit on the face of Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban and his cohorts in the Supreme Court, I am no SUPREME COURT: NO. longer interested in the position [of Chief Justice] if I was to be surrounded by idiots. I would rather be in another environment The court ruled in favor of Defensor-Santiago in this case. The but not in the Supreme Court of idiots x x x. plea of Senator Santiago for the dismissal of the complaint for disbarment or disciplinary action is well taken. Indeed, her According to Pobre, the words of the lady senator were privilege speech is not actionable criminally or in a disciplinary disrespectful and requested that the latter be disbarred or be proceeding under the Rules of Court. subjected to disciplinary action. Despite this, the court feels that the lady senator has gone RESPONDENT beyond the limits of decency and good conduct for the statements made which were intemperate and highly improper Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago argued that the statements in substance. The court is not hesitant to impose some form of she made were covered by the constitutional provision on disciplinary sanctions on her, but the factual and legal parliamentary immunity, being part of a speech she delivered in circumstances of this case, however, deter the Court from the discharge of her duty as member of Congress or its doing so, even without any sign of remorse from her. committee. She claims to have made those comments to expose anomalies with regard to the selection process of the Judicial Petition is DISMISSED Bar Council for the next Chief Justice.