Pia breaks down after Risa’s remark on shooting incident
Sen. Pia Cayetano turned emotional on Wednesday as she protested a colleagues’ remarks about the May 13 shooting incident in the Senate.
“It’s as if nothing happened. That is the statement of our honorable senator,” Cayetano said, referring to a privilege speech earlier delivered by Sen. Risa Hontiveros.
Her voice cracking, Cayetano went on: “Maybe for those of you who were not here, it may seem that nothing happened. But for those of us who were here, a lot happened. I was very scared, so scared that I felt I had to say goodbye to my children.”
She also shared the experience of a staff member who Cayetano said ran without knowing where to hide when the shots rang out.
“So to say that nothing happened is very painful for all of us who were here…,” she said.
What further stung, she said, was that no one from her colleagues in the former majority bloc checked on her after the incident.
“Some of you I’ve known for 20 years, 10 years, and I didn’t even hear any of you say, ‘How are you all doing there?’ That was very painful for me.”
Hontiveros later took the floor to clarify the context of her speech.
“As I said earlier. I deeply respect the emotions of our distinguished colleague. It is evident that the violence that breached our halls has profoundly affected all of us, and I don’t doubt the leadership’s personal distress over what transpired,” she said.
“However, when I stated that it feels as though—now— it feels now as though ‘walang nangyari,’ I was not speaking about our personal feelings. I was speaking about our institutional posture. Our grief as senators is valid, but our mandate requires action,” she said.
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