Pangilinan: There should be civility in face of disagreements

Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan on Thursday branded the allegations against Sen. Leila de Lima as “unfair.”

“I am saddened by the latest incident and consider it most unfortunate considering that only the other week the President had in fact said publicly that Sen. De Lima was just doing her job,” Pangilinan said in a statement, reacting to President Rodrigo Duterte’s personal attack against De Lima.

“He even said that if he were in her position, he’d do the same thing and investigate the upsurge in drug-related killings,” he said.

On Wednesday, Duterte called De Lima an “immoral woman” for allegedly having an affair with her driver.

“The accusations against De Lima are unfair,” Pangilinan said.

He said he could understand that the President was hard-pressed to deliver on his campaign promise to rid the nation of the scourge of illegal drugs “but there ought to be a greater degree of civility in the face of disagreements between and amongst both branches of government.”

“We should be able to perform our different roles as servants of the people and accord each other due respect,” the senator said.

Pangilinan and De Lima are members of the Liberal Party.

De Lima chairs the Senate committee on justice and human rights which is set to investigate next week the spate of killings in the country./rga

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