MANILA, Philippines – Senator Panfilo Lacson rejected on Wednesday a congressman’s call for him to apologize for supposedly damaging the reputation of the House of Representatives.
Instead, Lacson shot back at Capiz 2nd District Rep. Fredenil Castro, who demanded an apology from him.
“He is the one who should apologize to the Filipino people for abusing their hard-earned tax money in all the years that he is in Congress,” the senator said.
“His whining and howling will not deter my vigilance in performing my mandate of scrutinizing the budget measure.”
“I was in this fight alone for a long time. Now that many like-minded colleagues in the Senate are equally committed to do the same, with more reason I should be more vigilant,” Lacson added.
In a privilege speech at the House, Castro said Lacson should apologize to the chamber after alleging earlier that there was an aborted plan to give all 22 deputy speakers an additional P1.5 billion allocation and P700 million each to the rest of the House members.
“Perhaps Senator Lacson could be sensible enough to realize what he has done and what he has damaged this institution by extending an apology, a sincere apology to this institution and to all the members of this House of Representatives,” Castro said.
READ: Lacson pork claims baseless – Villafuerte
But Lacson, in a separate interview in the Senate, stood by his sources, who he said informed him about the planned huge allocations for House members.
He said Deputy Speaker Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr. sent him a text message, denying there was such an attempt to give congressmen huge allocations.
“Sabi ko I stand by my sources. And hindi lang isang source because I make it a point na pag mayroon information na dumating sa akin, I always look for a second validating information. Kasi mahirap yung isa lang ang source,” Lacson said./ac
(I said I stand by my sources. I make it a point that the pieces of information I received have been validated by a second source.)