Apostol draws flak for racial remark against Lozada
By Alcuin Papa, Tina Santos
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:30:00 02/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- Messages of protest poured in from Manila to Mindanao against Malacañang lawyer Sergio Apostol’s racist remark about NBN-ZTE star witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr.
Anticrime crusader Teresita Ang See said she received text messages and phone calls from members of the Chinese-Filipino community “from Manila to Mindanao” reacting to Apostol’s comment on Friday that Lozada being Chinese should be deported “for creating trouble.”
Apostol, the chief presidential legal counsel, called Lozada a “crying boy,” after seeing him wiping away tears during his nationally televised testimony. He also taunted Lozada for calling himself a “probinsyanong Intsik” (a provincial Chinese) and said that he should be deported for being a troublemaker.
“They [the Chinese-Filipinos] are in an uproar. He [Apostol] is trying to divert attention away from the issue of corruption,” said Ang See, founder of Kaisa para sa Kaularan (Kaisa) and spokesperson of Citizens’ Action Against Crime (CACC), in a phone interview.
Ang said Apostol’s racist comment was “uncalled for.”
“He should work to exile corrupt public servants instead and fill up the Philippines with upright people regardless of ethnic origin, that’s the only way our country can truly be great again,” she said.
She said Apostol’s comment “showed no respect for the [Chinese-Filipino] community. It was an attempt to denigrate Lozada by adding a racial dimension.”
She said the Chinese-Filipino community, “who often prefer to be bystanders” salute Lozada “for standing up for what is right.”
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