"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 felt 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."
A careful re-reading of her utterances would readily show that her statements were expressions of personal anger and frustration at not being considered for the post of Chief Justice. In a sense, therefore, her remarks were outside the pale of her official parliamentary functions. Even parliamentary immunity must not be allowed to be used as a vehicle to ridicule, demean, and destroy the reputation of the Court and its magistrates, nor as armor for personal wrath and disgust. Parliamentary immunity is not an individual privilege accorded the individual members of the Parliament or Congress for their personal benefit, but rather a privilege for the benefit of the people and the institution that represents them.
The Rules of the Senate itself contains a provision on Unparliamentary Acts and Language that enjoins a Senator from using, under any circumstance, "offensive or improper language against another senator or against any public institution." But as to Senator Santiago's unparliamentary remarks, the Senate President had not apparently called her to order, let alone referred the matter to the Senate Ethics Committee for appropriate disciplinary action, as the Rules dictates under such circumstance. The Lady Senator clearly violated the rules of her own chamber. It is unfortunate that her peers bent backwards and avoided imposing their own rules on her (Antero Pobre v. Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, A.C. No. 7399. August 25, 2009).
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