JIMENEZ V.

CABANBANG
GR NO L-15905

CAMILLE JOY C. PEREDO

CONSTI -1
FACTS OF THE CASE:
• In November 1958, while congress was not in session, defendant member
of the House of Representatives who was also Chairman of its Committee
on National Defense caused the publication in several newspapers of an
open letter to the President of the Philippines stating that certain members
of the armed Forces of the Philippines have been preparing for a coup and
working for the presidential candidacy of the Secretary of national defense.
• The plaintiffs were named in the open letter as being controlled by the
“Planners” of the coup, thus the case was filed to collect a sum of damages
against the defendant alleging that the statement is libelous.
FACTS OF THE CASE:
• Defendant petitioned for the case to be dismissed
claiming that as a member of the lower house he is
immune from suit, that he is covered by the privileged
communication rule and that the said letter is not even
libelous.
ISSUE:
• The issues before us are: (1) whether the publication in
question is a privileged communication; and, if not, (2)
whether it is libelous or not.

RULING:
• On the first issue, NO, it is not a privileged
communication.
• On the second issue, NO, it is not considered libelous.
RATIO DECIDENDI:
• No, the open letter is not covered by the speech and debate clause of the
Constitution and thus not immune from suit. Pursuant to the Constitution, 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 (Article VI, Section 15).
• This privilege covers utterances made by Congressmen in the performance of
their official functions, while congress is in session. In the case at hand the
court found that the defendant was not performing his official duty either as
member of congress or as officer thereof as Congress was not in session
at the time the letter was published. Hence, the communication is not
absolutely privileged.
RATIO DECIDENDI:
• No, . The very document upon which plaintiffs' action is based explicitly
indicates that they might be absolutely unaware of the alleged operational plans,
and that they may be merely unwitting tools of the planners. We do not think that
this statement is derogatory to the plaintiffs, to the point of entitling them to
recover damages, considering that they are officers of our Armed Forces, that as
such they are by law, under the control of the Secretary of National Defense and
the Chief of Staff, and that the letter in question seems to suggest that the group
therein described as "planners" include these two (2) high ranking officers.
• the aforementioned passage in the defendant's letter clearly implies that plaintiffs
were not among the "planners" of said coup d'etat, for, otherwise, they could not
be "tools", much less, unwittingly on their part, of said "planners".