Why did seven Philippine Senators not sign the resolution to stop the killing of minors in the country? Some of them said yesterday that they allegedly did not receive any such resolution for signing.
During yesterday’s Senate session, Senator Vicente Sotto III said that he never saw resolution 516 that called on the administration to “undertake the necessary steps to stop the spate of killings, especially of our children.”
Senator Cynthia Villar said something similar during her speech: “I, together with the other senators, were not asked to sign. We did not refuse to sign,” she said.
Both Sotto and Villar and the five other senators who did not sign the resolution are members of the Senate majority and are known to be supporters of the Duterte administration.
The resolution, dated Sept. 25, was passed by Senate minority member Senator Francis Pangilinan. He addressed the Senate yesterday and said sorry for failing to give the resolution to other senators.
“I apologize. Again, I will stress I have no control over what social media will decide to upload,” Pangilinan said in reference to a scathing blog post from Silent No More PH that bashed the seven senators for not signing the resolution.
Notably, Senator Leila de Lima, who is currently detained in Camp Crame over drug charges and a critic of Duterte, was able to sign the resolution.
In an interview with the press, Villar said that she was warned that some senators will try to sabotage them. “Someone told us that two senators from the minority will try to destroy us,” she said.
But Senator Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, a member of the minority said that there was no truth to this.
“That is not true and it’s not fair to say that,” Aquino said.
