Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr.. Senate PRIB file photo / Voltaire F. Domingo
MANILA, Philippines — Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. said he is considering filing charges against the traffic violators “for impersonating” him.
This, even after the surrender of the two drivers, who admitted using Revilla’s name when caught using the Edsa bus carousel on Wednesday.
“While we leave it to the MMDA to pursue legal actions arising from their traffic violations, we are contemplating filing charges against them for impersonating me,” Revilla said in a statement on Thursday.
“If there is one good that came out of this, we exposed the wrong practice that a single person in the MMDA believes he has the power to select to whom the law applies,” he added.
MMDA Task Force Special Operations Unit Head Col. Bong Nebrija already admitted that he let the alleged convoy of the senator to pass through the bus carousel upon hearing Revilla’s name from a traffic enforcer.
“I was in the area, but I’m away from that spot, so now he [enforcer] said, ‘Sir Bong, the convoy you stopped earlier… because it passed [the busway], so we stopped it… the convoy you stopped belongs to Sen. Revilla,” Nebrija said at Wednesday’s Kapihan sa Manila Bay forum.
“I asked if the senator was there, [he answered] ‘yes sir,’ then let him go,” he added.
Nebrija later apologized to Revilla, who vehemently denied violating the rule on the use of the Edsa bus lane.
The senator was fuming that he even threatened to move for a recall of the proposed 2024 budget of the MMDA.
Accompanied by MMDA chairman Romando Artes, Nebrija went to the Senate on Wednesday to personally apologize to Revilla.
Pending investigation, Artes announced in the Senate that Nebrija would be under preventive suspension starting this Thursday.