Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, on Tuesday, filed a cyber-libel complaint against Edward Angelo “Cocoy” Dayao, for calling him names, and allegedly leading a controversial blog post of “Silent No More PH.”
Sotto went to the Pasay City’s Prosecutor’s Office to file the complaint.
“I represent the other members of the Senate. This is not just about me or my family, but for the future of my grandchildren and my fellow senators,” Sotto said.r
He added, “Tinuluyan ko na talaga [magsampa ng kaso] (I really continued the filing of the complaint).”
In a post in its Facebook page last September 26, Silent No More PH – a blog known to critic the Duterte administration, attached a link to an article entitled “Malacañang Dogs in the Senate” tagging Sotto and six other senators.
According to Sotto, though the blog ‘invented’ a fake story, his complaint centered on the name-calling aspect of the post.
“Balewala ‘yung sinasabi niya [na] hindi kami pumirma. Nag-imbento siya ng istorya ganoon na mali, na hindi naman kami pinapirma talaga. Balewala ‘yun. ‘Yung name-calling niya ang libelous (Claiming that we did not sign or inventing an untrue story of us not signing do not matter. The name-calling is what is libelous),” he said last week, announcing plans of filing a complaint.
The blog post referred to them refusing to sign a resolution prepared by Senator Francisco “Kiko” Pangilinan, condemning the killings of minors related to the President’s campaign to eradicate illegal drugs in the country. As of writing, the Facebook page has not deleted the post, but the attached link is inaccessible.
The mentioned senators denied this and insisted that contrary to the blog’s claim that they “refused,” they were actually not informed nor asked to sign the said resolution.
Pangilinan in his defense, said that it was not intentional to exclude the seven senators. After all, as long as majority of the Senate signed, the resolution can be filed.
Apart from Sotto, the senators named were Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, Richard “Dick” Gordon, Juan Miguel “Migs” Zubiri, Gringo Honasan, Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, and Cynthia Villar.