25/08/2026
PWEDE BANG TAWAGING “STUPID” ANG WITNESS?
On Day 17 of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, Senator-judge Raffy Tulfo asked former Office of the Vice President Special Disbursing Officer Gina Acosta whether she considered herself smart, average, or stupid. She answered "average." Tulfo then told her, "So for me, in this case, you're stupid in the name of blind loyalty."
Atty. Bernice Piñol-Rodriguez takes the question the whole country started asking after that clip and answers it with the actual text of the law: Rule 132, Section 3 of the Rules of Court, which protects every witness from insulting questions and from harsh or insulting demeanor; Rule 132, Section 13, which governs what a hostile-witness declaration does and does not permit; and Article VI, Section 11 of the Constitution, the parliamentary immunity provision that decides whether anything can be filed at all.
She also revisits Pobre v. Defensor-Santiago, decided by the Supreme Court exactly seventeen years ago, where a senator called the Supreme Court "a Supreme Court of idiots," was found to have used offensive and disrespectful language, and walked away from the complaint entirely.
Improper and actionable are not the same thing. This episode explains the difference.
Full episode dropping today, Tuesday, August 25, at 7 PM, on The Hey Attorney Podcast.
