Villar on viral video: I’ll fight for what’s right

MANILA, Philippines — Stressing that she would “fight for what is right,” Sen. Cynthia Villar said that the viral video portraying her berating a private security guard and his boss as a confrontation might have been “planned” by parties opposed to her wanting to keep the Friendship Route open.

In an interview with reporters, Villar said the incident in which she questioned the putting up of barriers on a public road in Las Piñas City might have been planned by the leaders of the homeowners’ association of BF Resort Village.

“There was no outburst. I was just telling them it’s for public use. It’s not for me. Composting program has been there for 20 years. It has been given an international award by an international agency,” the senator noted.

Villar had earlier cleared the road of informal settlers and received a court order temporarily stopping the subdivision from blocking access to a street as part of the city’s Friendship Route.

“Maybe they got angry at me because that will bring down their income because they’re charging P2,500 (yearly) per sticker while the Friendship Sticker is free for Las Piñas residents,” she said.

She clarified that she was just asking why they set up metal barriers on the road, which was constructed using public funds.

She also pointed out that she could not hurt the security guard, who was bigger than her and was even armed. “Well, he’s big, why should I hurt him, there is something with it, he is a security guard, he has a gun. Can I hurt him? I am way smaller than him,” she said in Filipino.

Villar said she wondered why the man kept on saying “Don’t hurt him” over and over, but it turned out the incident was being recorded.

She said that as a public official, she has accepted what has the incident’s outcome incident on social media. “You accept it, that’s the price to pay for being a public official, you have to accept it, you just have to do what you have to do,” she said.

The senator said the Friendship Route, which was established in 1995 through an ordinance, cuts through several subdivisions, including BFRV, in Las Piñas to provide motorists living in the city an alternate route to the congested Alabang-Zapote Road.

“They were given a (temporary restraining order,) so the BF Resort Village cannot [stop people from] using the Friendship Route,” Villar said. “I have already consulted my lawyers and instructed them to study the appropriate cases and actions in addition to the complaint which they granted me a TRO.”

“I don’t want people to remember me as a senator who just kept quiet. I want to be remembered as someone who will fight for what is right and what is good for the people,” she said.