Senator Kiko Pangilinan’s office clarified that they sent the resolution against the killings of minors to the “publicly available,” “official” email addresses of five of the seven senators who were unable to sign the said measure.
[ads2]
Atty. Herminio Bagro III, Pangilinan’s chief-of-staff, issued a statement that their office did send a copy of the measure to Senators Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, Richard Gordon, Juan Miguel Zubiri, Cynthia Villar, and Gregorio Honasan.
The statement was released after six of the seven senators – Senate President Koko Pimentel, Senators Sotto, Gordon, Villar, Zubiri, and Pacquiao – claimed that the resolution against the killings of minors drafted by Pangilinan did not reach their office.
Pangilinan’s office did admit that they did not send the resolution to Pimentel and Pacquiao, who are both party-mates of President Rodrigo Duterte in PDP-Laban.
Bargo said that they emailed the five senators about the resolution at noon on September 21 since the senator wanted to “gather more signatures.” Over four hours later, Gordon acknowledged receipt of the email.
The senator’s office even showed a screenshot of their email.
[ads1]
On September 25, Pangilinan filed the resolution. The following day, the resolution and the names of the 16 senators who co-authored it were read on the floor without any manifestation from the seven senators.
“It should be noted that no one manifested desire to be a co-author of the measure. Senate President Pimentel referred it to the committee of Senators [Risa] Hontiveros and [Panfilo] Lacson,” Bagro said in the statement.
“Clearly there was no attempt to keep or withhold the resolution from the 7 senators. The Senate rules were followed. And most importantly, the Senate is showing that it cares to find justice for victims of all extrajudicial killings,” Pangilinan’s office added.
On September 27, Sotto called for an investigation into the Silent No More PH blog for labelling him and the other 6 senators as “Malacañang dogs.”
Sources: ( rappler.com , kikopangilinan.com )
[ads3]
