Don’t romanticize senators’ arrest, Cayetano urges media

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano: Don’t romanticize. ARNOLD ALMACEN/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–Stop selling the drama.

Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano on Monday urged the media not to romanticize the situation of his fellow senators who were being held at the jail facility of the Philippine National Police over the P10-billion pork barrel racket.

Cayetano visited the PNP main headquarters in Quezon City moments before Sen. Jinggoy Estrada joined his friend and fellow actor, Sen. Bong Revilla, at the Custodial Center.

Cayetano graced the inauguration of the new building of the PNP Crime Laboratory, located just a few steps away from the detention center where Revilla and Estrada were being held.

“All I ask from the media is to … focus on the crime rather than do stories portraying the condition of the accused as unfortunate,” he told reporters.

Since Revilla surrendered to the authorities before the Sandiganbayan ordered his arrest on Friday, Cayetano lamented the media had “lost its focus” on the coverage of the pork barrel racket.

“The focus should be how the crime is punished and not the plight of those being detained,” he said.

“We should remember that the poor and hungry farmers are the real victims here. Almost all the major corruption issues in the government involved agriculture funds like the fertilizer fund scam, swine scam and this issue of pork barrel funds,” he said.

Cayetano said he opted not to visit Revilla “because I remembered the victims of the crime.”

Although he sympathized with the families of Revilla and Estrada, the Senate majority leader said he also considered the effect of the misuse of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocation of lawmakers on small farmers.

Interestingly, alleged pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles has named Cayetano among the politicians who received campaign contributions from her.