MANILA, Philippines -- Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. denied on Monday that he attacked Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile when he went to the Supreme Court to question the rules adopted by the Senate, acting as a Committee of the Whole, in the investigation of Senator Manuel Villar Jr. for unethical behavior.

Pimentel rose to defend himself during the Senate plenary after Enrile completed his privilege speech denouncing the minority leader for branding him as a dictator and authoritarian before the high court and in the media.

In his speech where he referred to the Senate president as only “Mr. Enrile,” Pimentel took offense to Enrile's branding him a “coward” and said that a coward was “someone who runs away.”

“As Mr. Enrile knows --he ordered my arrest four times -- did I run away?” he said, in reference to the time when he was detained during the regime of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos when Enrile was a defense minister.

He said he was not a hypocrite and accused Enrile of being a “bigger hypocrite” as he reminded Enrile's “faked” ambush that led to the declaration of martial law in 1972.

After Pimentel's speech, Senator Edgardo Angara was seen talking to Enrile and Pimentel separately.

Enrile then strode off the session hall, telling reporters he had to meet some people in his office.

Sessions at the Senate were suspended as majority bloc senators left the session hall for the lounge.

In a privilege speech earlier, Enrile took offense with Pimentel’s recent barbs following the minority bloc's move to petition the Supreme Court last week to stop the investigation of the ethics complaint against Villar.

He denied he challenged Pimentel to a "shooting war” as the latter had said.

"The senator from Cagayan De Oro said that he is not a gunslinger, implying that I am a gunslinger because I have called on him to end his hypocrisy and duplicity,” Enrile said.

"Assuming that in his perception I am a gunslinger, which I am not, I will not waste a bullet on him. A bullet is too expensive for a coward,” he said.

Enrile called Pimentel many names, including a “spoiled brat” and “hypocrite.”

He said he was mad at Pimentel for personally attacking him in the latter's petition for certiorari before the high court, where the minority leader accused the Senate president for his “unabashed display of dictatorial tendencies.”

Enrile said that the “bottom line” was that the minority bloc “wants desperately to prevent the submission of evidence against respondent Manuel Villar.”

He accused Pimentel of lawyering for Villar.

Enrile offered to resign as chair of the Senate committee of the whole and said he would even nominate Pimentel for the job.

“Or perhaps the senator from Cagayan de Oro and his co-petitioners who have accused me of being a dictator would like to nominate someone else?” Enrile said.

Villar is being investigated by the Senate, acting as a Committee of the Whole, for conflict of interest in the C-5 road extension project. Senator Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal alleged that his real estate empire benefited from the project, a charge that Villar denied. Edited by INQUIRER.net