Atty. Lorenzo “Larry” Gadon. Photo by Faye Orellana/INQUIRER.net
Did he or didn’t he?
File the wrong certificate of candidacy (COC), that is.
Netizens on Friday had a field day roasting controversial lawyer Larry Gadon after the senatorial aspirant filed an outdated COC.
Gadon, who initiated the impeachment complaint against then Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, can’t seem to get his facts straight when quizzed why it took a while for his COC to be processed.
Initially, Gadon said he didn’t have enough photos for his COC. He also denied submitting an incorrect form. Pressed on why his COC filing took over an hour, Gadon said the person he had asked to get his spare photo in his car had a previous errand.
For the 2019 midterm polls, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) updated the COC form. It added Question 22, which asks aspirants if they were ever found liable for an offense with a final and executory penalty of perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez, who earlier reminded aspirants about the updated form, said that what Gadon had submitted “was not the correct form.”
Gadon’s oversight and subsequent denial of it prompted netizens to remind him of his infamous public statements that had since gone viral on social media. Gadon once called Sereno supporters “bobo” (idiot).
“And he said he was not an idiot,” netizen @cathycis said. Twitter user @manaydo was more blunt, saying “Gadon hear this please: Idiots should not run.”
‘Fake news’
Gadon called for Sereno’s impeachment last year, citing the former Chief Justice’s alleged failure to be truthful in her Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth. The Sereno camp dismissed the allegations as “fake news.”
He also doubled down on his 2016 statement that Muslims, including children, who do not help end the rebellion and terrorist attacks in Mindanao should be killed.
“Any terrorist, they have to be exterminated. [Being a child] is not an excuse. You mean to say that you will allow these children to kill people, civilians, innocent people? Just because they are children, you will allow them to kill people,” he said in response to a reporter’s question about his position on the issue should he be elected to the Senate.
Gadon, who was part of the legal team of former President and now Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, currently faces four disbarment cases.
The first was for his anti-Muslim hate speech, the second for his supposed arrogance and dishonesty during the House impeachment proceedings against Sereno, and for two instances when he hurled invectives and called Sereno’s supporters idiots.
In the 2016 elections, Gadon ran for senator under Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, an umbrella coalition of parties formed in the 1970s in support of dictator Ferdinand Marcos and later revived in the mid-80s. He placed 27th.