MANILA, Philippines — BHW party-list Rep. Angelica Natasha Co on Monday said that Agri party-list Rep. Wilbert Lee admitted that it was his communications team that was behind the splicing of videos taken during the budget deliberations scuffle at the House of Representatives.
Co and Marikina 2nd District Rep. Stella Quimbo filed a complaint against Lee before the House committee on ethics and privileges.
According to Co and Quimbo, there were different videos of Lee’s aggressive behavior last September 25, when the House was debating on the proposed 2025 budget of the Department of Health (DOH), but these videos did not show what actually happened.
“And then, if I may also add, inamin naman po niya sa akin na Comms team niya yung nakapag splice ng video. And then he told his team na nadamay nga po ako nagalit siya dahil nadamay daw ako,” Co told reporters in an ambush interview.
(And then, if I may also add, he admitted that it was his Communications team who spliced the video. And then he told his team that I was dragged into the issue, so he was upset because I was dragged into the issue.)
Co said that his family and the Lees are friends — hence Lee’s reaction towards his team.
Co, however, noted that other parties might have taken advantage of what Lee’s team supposedly did — to splice the videos.
“Pero the point is, totoo pong may spliced videos coming from his Comms team. Although kung hindi niya man po yun alam, nangyari na po eh,” Co said.
(But the point is, it is true that there are spliced videos coming from his Comms team. Although he may not be aware of these, it already happened.)
A quick search of Quimbo and Lee’s names on social media would show different videos using the narrative that Lee was supposedly mad at Quimbo over other issues.
It is unclear, however, if these were the videos that Co was referring to.
INQUIRER.net sought the side of Rep. Lee, who has yet to reply as of posting time.
Earlier though, Lee clarified that it was never his intention to hurt or bully Quimbo and Co when he came over to them during the budget deliberations.
According to Lee, he respects the decision of the two lawmakers to file an ethics complaint against him.
Quimbo and Co said they filed the complaint, as they felt threatened when Lee aggressively came up to them while they were defending the DOH budget.
During the said session, Lee was seen grabbing the microphone from Senior Deputy Minority Leader and Northern Samar 1st District Rep. Paul Daza, who was moving to terminate the deliberations as no minority lawmaker wanted to ask questions about DOH’s budget.
However, Co revealed last October 2 that they have urged the House committee on ethics and privileges to investigate Lee’s actions, as only the mic-grabbing incident was seen, and not Lee’s alleged threats against her and Quimbo.
According to Co, Lee demanded that he be allowed to speak or else he would stage a commotion — forcing Quimbo to duck behind the podium out of fear that Lee might “assault” her.
But according to Lee, he did not intend to disrespect the institution, adding that his action was brought upon by a desire to secure commitments from DOH and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), regarding the lowering of out-of-pocket medical expenses.
Quimbo said Lee has not yet apologized to her personally, two weeks after the incident.
Instead, Quimbo said Lee wrote a letter to House committee on appropriations chairperson and Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co.
In the letter, Lee apologized for his demeanor during the discussions, saying that it was just “brought about by the intense passion and sense of duty to enter into the records the commitments we are demanding” from DOH and PhilHealth.