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Admin senators cry foul over criticisms, claim reso vs. child killings did not reach them


Several senators from the majority bloc on Wednesday cried foul over insinuations that they purposely did not sign the Senate resolution urging the Duterte administration to address the spate of senseless killings, especially of children.

The senators who did not sign Senate Resolution No. 516 bewailed remarks made by a group that labeled them as "Malacañang dogs" after they supposedly refused to endorse the resolution, according to dzBB reporter Nimfa Ravelo.

At least two of them said the document simply did not reach them on the day it was passed around to the members of the Senate.

"Hindi umikot sa akin 'yan, hindi dumaan sa opisina ko 'yan," Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said in a speech during the day's session. "Tapos I did not sign? Ibang usapan 'to, Mr. President, pagka ganyan."

"As I said I take no offense with the reso, pero I take offense on how they are projecting the content of the resolution and how it is being used," he added.

Sotto and the other senators who did not sign the resolution were the targets of a blog post by Silent No More PH that called them names and accused them of being more concerned with their alliance with Malacañang than the lives of people.

The Senate resolution, filed Monday, called on government to "undertake the necessary steps to stop the senseless killings, especially of our children, and to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, to determine the institutional reasons, if any, that give rise to such killings." It was signed by 16 of 23 senators.

Aside from Sotto, the other senators who have no signatures in the resolution were Richard Gordon, Gringo Honasan, Manny Pacquiao, Aquilino Pimentel III, Cynthia Villar, and Miguel Zubiri.

In the post, released September 26, Silent No More PH called Pimentel a "mouthpiece of the administration," Sotto a “rapist, plagiarist and bigot,” and Gordon an “all-bark-no-bite lapdog of the administration.”

Sotto said he will resign if he is ever proven a rapist.

"Strike one: Tito Sotto, the rapist: when, where, how, who?" Sotto said in a speech. "If there is any iota of rape that I am charged with in the whole world, and not only in the Philippines, I will resign as Senator of the Republic."  

He called the allegations a case of "black propaganda."

"Sira ulo nito," he said of the group who made the post. "Matagal na itong pumatol-patol doon sa mga kagaguhang lumalabas nung araw pa, even before the elections, but there is no…wala ng eleksyon eh, so black propaganda, ibang klaseng black propaganda na ito."

In the same post, Honasan was called a “key coup plotter and destabilizer to the administration after the martial law,” and Pacquiao “the most incompetent person in the Senate.”
 
Senator Cynthia Villar also took offense, saying in a speech that she was forewarned by social media practitioners to “be careful, because certain members of the Senate will try to destroy us.”

"I kept quiet because I did not believe it. Now maybe this is the beginning of that warning. That is my manifestation,” Villar said.

She was called in the blog post as a “business tycoon who showered PDP-Laban millions during the elections in exchange for his son heading the DPWH and make the family business prosper."

Villar said she was told that Senators Bam Aquino and Risa Hontiveros were out to “destroy” them, a claim that was refuted by Aquino, who said there was no intention to destroy the seven senators.

"Wala yatang ganung klaseng intensiyon at wala yatang ganung klaseng pangyayari rito. It’s not realistic considering na sila ang nasa majority," Aquino said in an interview.

"Again, if you look at the resolution, maraming pumirma diyan. Halu-halo kaming partido,” he added.

Pacquiao, meanwhile, called for an investigation into the identity of the person who criticized the seven senators who did not sign the resolution.


Zubiri, in an interview in Unang Balita, also said the resolution did not reach him, and nor did anyone approach him about it. He was called a “hypocrite election cheater” by the blog post.

“"Hindi naman ako nilapitan nila. Sana nilapitan po nila 'ko. Walang lumapit sa 'kin," he said.

Senator Panfilo Lacson, meanwhile, said he “sympathizes” with his colleagues who are now being lambasted in social media.

“I can only sympathize with them. Wala naman silang information na may pinapaikot palang resolution, ” Lacson said.

There is nothing wrong if the resolution was made in good faith, Lacson said, but wondered if the focus on the seven who did not sign it may be an indication of “bad faith.”

“Ang masama, nag-focus on those who did not sign, 7 senators. Di na lang sinabi 16 signed, majority na nag-sign to denounce. Bakit mag-focus sa 7 who did not sign tapos babanatan mo? Baka doon may bad faith di ba?” he said.

The seven senators, along with ten others, filed their own version of the earlier resolution on Wednesday.

This time, Senate resolution No. 518 minced no words: it is titled "a resolution condemning in the strongest sense the extrajudicial killings and calling on the government to exert and exhaust all efforts to stop and resolve these extrajudicial and all other unresolved killings." —Nicole-Anne Lagrimas/KBK, GMA News

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