Hontiveros calls PNP-CIDG’s sedition rap ‘badly written telenovela’

Nonetheless, Hontiveros said they won’t be “distracted,” “intimidated,” and won’t “back down.” (File photo:
Senator Risa Hontiveros/Facebook)

Senator Risa Hontiveros slammed the move of the Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group’s (PNP-CIDG) to file sedition and other charges against Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo and other opposition figures, comparing it to a “badly written telenovela.”

“Bad acting. Awful script. Terrible plot twist,” the lady senator said in her statement on Friday, July 19.

“I find it ludicrous that after the Philippine National Police (PNP) assailed the credibility of ‘Bikoy,’ even threatening him with arrest, when he came out with videos accusing President Rodrigo Duterte, his family and close political friends of links to illegal drugs, after he sings a different tune, the PNP now finds him credible,” she added. Hontiveros was referring to Peter Joemel Advincula who claims to be “Bikoy” or the hooded man in the viral videos that linked members of the First family to illegal drugs.

The PNP-CIDG on Thursday filed before the Department of Justice (DOJ) complaints of sedition, inciting to sedition, cyber-libel, libel, estafa, harboring a criminal, and obstruction of justice against Robredo, Hontiveros, former senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Senator Leila De Lima, and Otso Diretso senatorial candidates Gary Alejano, Chel Diokno, Samira Gutoc, Florin Hilbay, Romulo Macalintal, and Erin Tañada. Some members of the clergy were also among the respondents in the complaint.

Hontiveros said the filing of charges was a “total waste of taxpayers’ money” and that she found it “odd” that the PNP-CIDG’s move comes just days before President Rodrigo Duterte delivers his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA).

“I fear that this is another attempt to introduce a ‘distracting narrative’ to the people to veer public attention away from the real issues surrounding the country’s state of affairs,” the senator said.

Nonetheless, Hontiveros said they won’t be “distracted,” “intimidated,” and won’t “back down.”

“Even against overwhelming odds, we will continue to speak truth to power and defend democracy and human rights in the country,” she said.

Robredo’s camp, Trillanes, and Senator Francis Pangilinan, president of Liberal Party (LP) earlier blasted the charges filed by the PNP-CIDG, calling it a form of “harassment.”

[READ: Opposition blasts sedition, other raps filed by PNP-CIDG against them]