"Am I man enough to stand by my principles?" Sotto must have been musing before delivering his speech.
"Even when the educated middle and liberal upper class, who have access to social media pelt me with criticisms? Tell lies about my family? Write ugly stories for everyone to read? Discredit, not only my character but everything I believe?"
The Senator finds himself in very deep shit.
"Even when I'm obviously wrong but I just can't admit it?" He would then probe deep into his being for answers. This time, he chose not to let his speech writers do his work. Whatever he will say must come from his tin-coated, hollowed heart.
"Because I am a Senator of the Republic and people like me can never go wrong."
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I will always remember what Athena, my superior, said during our leadership training. That when a person of power commits a mistake, a swift and sincere apology ends all debates. To be sure, collateral damage must still be dealt with, and excuses have no place when admitting a mistaken judgement. But as far as the issue is concerned, it's all over. It will die a natural death, and everyone will find another fault - from another person to point at.
What Sotto did was the opposite. First, he denied any wrong doing - even when his officers had already admitted to the act of plagiarism. Then, he had the balls to display his bravado, by telling the nation that it's okay to copy other people's work. His statement further irks an already belligerent constituents that soon, even his thoughtless opinions (like who he will support as the next interior government secretary) receive near-universal derision. Three weeks into the plagiarism issue, and still in-denial, the dishonorable legislator now thinks he could get away by proposing regulations that will stifle what bloggers can write.
No wonder, even the politically-allergic fence-sitters have now began taking sides.
I may not be as incensed as I used to when the issue first came into the public's attention. Perhaps, I have resigned to seeing Sotto as a jester, and that everything he claims no longer stirs a violent reaction. He may be the most disliked government official today and in the months to come, but his hold on power lasts until the next president is put into office.
Which is sad really, knowing we have to bear with his breathtaking idiocy for a long time.
But there are pressing concerns, which I believe Sotto is trying to distract us from. Should this be a deliberate strategy, he has not only spared the Bishops from the mudslinging they have been getting before this plagiarism issue came out, the unloved Senator, in his cunning ways have sacrificed himself so that the rest of us will turn our heads elsewhere and move away from the battle lines we have already secured.
Somewhere in the far distance, the architects of the Anti-RH Bill campaign must be LOL-ing.