President must not let hecklers affect PH efforts on sovereignty — solon
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should not waste his time on hecklers, trolls and destabilizers hurling lies against him after he flagged the alleged “secret deal” between former president Rodrigo Duterte and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the Philippines’ sovereign claim on the West Philippine Sea.
“The President will not waste his and the people’s time in using the presidential pulpit to respond to lies the destabilizers are spreading, but he will not hesitate in using it to call out acts of that will compromise national interest committed through a secret deal against us,” Camarines Sur 2nd District Rep. Luis Raymund “L-Ray” Villafuerte Jr. said in a statement.
Villafuerte, president of the National Unity Party (NUP), raised the alarm on the President’s hecklers after details surrounding the alleged secret deal between Duterte and China regarding the West Philippine Sea eventually surfacing.
“The answer is simple. If it concerns the nation’s business, the President responds. If it is personal, he shrugs it off,” said the lawmaker after hecklers criticized the President for putting the secret deal on the spotlight.
Calling the President’s remarks as “statesman-like,” Villafuerte assured the public that “the President can weather the harshest vitriol hurled against him, and because they are false, are best left unanswered.”
“The President’s statement on the ‘secret agreement’ has been measured, responsible, statesman-like and factual, as befits the office he holds,” the lawmaker from Camarines Sur said.
“As if on cue, those who have been heckling the President are now shouting their latest baseless tirade from the rooftops: Why has he been commenting on the ‘secret agreement’ issue when he has been silent on the many brickbats thrown against him?” he added.
Villafuerte said that President Marcos, being the leader of the land, has the “duty to defend and articulate the national interest every time it is threatened.”
“The President is not singling out any party when he is vocal in asserting our sovereignty on a territory which by law and history is ours,” the lawmaker stressed.
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