(Eagle News)–Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman on Wednesday, Aug. 28, slammed Senator Bong Go for calling his image “beyond repair” during a privilege speech in which Go defended the Malasakit Centers he was pushing for.
In a statement, Lagman said Go’s “ballistic reaction was unprovoked because I did not even mention his name when I asked the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) during its budget briefing to provide the legal basis for its funding the Malasakit Centers and for PCSO to investigate their effectiveness.”
According to Lagman, in the first place, contrary to the “repeated pronouncements” of Go that the Malasakit Centers are “one-stop shops” for “post-confinement financial assistance,” Lagman said, they were “mere outlets for referral to the main local offices of the participating agencies.”
He said beneficiaries “have to just the same queue in long lines because the representatives in the centers do not have the authority nor discretion to make assessments either for partial or full payment of hospital bill balances.”
To Go’s allegation Lagman himself would let his own constituents go to his house so they would see he themselves was helping them, the Albay representative said he has “always been a pro-poor legislator long before the advent of the Malasakit Centers and my legislative performance and accomplishments speak of my advocacies for the disadvantaged and marginalized.”
He said he has “never required indigent patients to go to my house to get referrals for financial assistance because ever since they invariably approach my staff in my congressional and district offices.”
“Paucity of merit and reason cannot be concealed by unparliamentary language and malevolent innuendoes,” Lagman said.
Go slammed Lagman in his first-ever privilege speech on Tuesday.
“Prangkahin ko na rin po kayo, your image is beyond repair. Hindi po ikakaayos ng pagmumukha ninyo ang pagkontra ninyo sa interes ng mga Pilipino,” Go, a former longterm aide of President Rodrigo Duterte, had said.
Lagman is a known critic of Duterte and his administration.