JV Ejercito defends Gatchalian over Twitter expletives

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito on Tuesday came to his colleague, Sen. Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian’s defense after the latter drew flak from his tweets cursing online bashers.

Ejercito said Gatchalian’s online outburst only showed that politicians are also “humans.”

“In the incident involving my Co-Seatmate Sen. @stgatchalian, goes to show that we are also human, we get hurt & affected too,” Ejercito wrote.

“What is scary is if we public servants become immune from bashing & attacks from rabid haters, then we become insensitive & are like political robots,” he added.

In the incident involving my Co-Seatmate Sen. @stgatchalian, goes to show that we are also human, we get hurt & affected too. What is scary is if we public servants become immune from bashing & attacks from rabid haters, then we become insensitive & are like political robots.

— JV Ejercito (@jvejercito) January 2, 2018

On New Year’s day, Gatchalian responded to a number of Twitter users with curses such as “g**o” and “u***l” when they called him out for being an “ingrate” or “trapo” when he criticized the Aquino administration.

In response to an online report stating that the Liberal Party said 2018 “may be the fight for nation's soul,” Gatchalian said “the nation already lost its soul in the last 6 years,” while referring to the Aquino government.

Gatchalian used to be a supporter of the Aquino administration.

His criticism then prompted some netizens to call him out and made him response with some expletives.

“Wow, the gall this Senator Gatchalian has is unbelievable...ingrato,” Twitter user Romdel Bellosillo wrote.

Other netizens also posted screenshots of Gatchalian’s previous tweets showing support to former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, while saying “the internet never forgets.” Gatchalian also responded with a curse as he asked what year those tweets were.

Gago! Anong year yan???

— Sherwin Gatchalian (@stgatchalian) January 1, 2018

Ulol

— Sherwin Gatchalian (@stgatchalian) January 1, 2018

Gatchalian's tweets earned negative criticisms from netizens who said his language is "unbecoming of an elected public official."

Asked if his Twitter account got hacked following the successive cursing, Gatchalian admitted that he was the one who tweeted the expletive responses. The senator is currently on vacation in Las Vegas, United States.

Meanwhile, Gatchalian thanked Ejercito for defending his tweets.

“Thanks Bro. For 17 years in public service, I only focused on one objective - how to serve the people better every single day,” Gatchalian wrote.