Apostol apologizes to Chinese community

MANILA, Philippines – Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol apologized for what he said was his unintended racial slur against Chinese-Filipinos in commenting on the testimony of witness Rodolfo Lozada Jr. on the scrapped $329-million national broadband network project with ZTE Corp. of China.

This developed as more members of the Chinese-Filipino community and even lawmakers joined in condemning Apostol for his statements.

Media reports have quoted Lozada as describing himself as a “probinsyanong intsik (provincial Chinese)” in portraying his humble origins, his father having been a poor immigrant from China.

Apostol on Friday called Lozada a “crying lady” as the latter broke down publicly on at least two occasions since he surfaced on Thursday. He also said if Lozada was Chinese, he should be “deported for creating trouble.”

“This refers to my statement uttered in an emotional outburst in reaction to Mr. Jun Lozada’s implication of the First Gentleman (Jose Miguel Arroyo) to an alleged crime based on what is, at best, hearsay evidence,” Apostol said in a statement Sunday.

“Be that as it may, I sincerely apologize to our hardworking and law abiding Filipino-Chinese who may have been offended by my unintended slur,” he said.

The Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc. has joined the Tsinoy community in condemning Apostol’s rude statements.

In a letter sent to Apostol dated Feb. 10, the Federation, through Secretary General Fernando Gan, told Apostol that his statement “smacks of racial discrimination of the highest order.”

“It would have been callous if such utterance were made by an unlearned individual. But coming form a bar topnotcher, a former city fiscal, former regional trial court judge, former congressman and now chief presidential legal counsel, such remarks are uncalled for,” Gan said in the one-page letter, a copy of which was sent to the Senate over the weekend.

Gan noted that the group is not writing in defense of Lozada or to pass judgment on his testimony.

“We in the federation do not know him, nor were we aware of his ethnic roots until he himself revealed so,” the letter read.

“Through this letter, we are expressing our strongest indignation over this racial slur. We believe that such  an  unfair  and insensitive statement only tends to create greater divide between the Tsinoys and mainstream Philippine society,” the letter added.

The federation, consisting of 170 chapters all over the country, assured the government though that it will continue to work hard to promote harmonious relations and economic well-being of the two peoples, Gan said.

Sen. Manuel Roxas II also empathized with the sentiments of the Chinese community.

“We find it totally ironic that the President’s lawyer has made a racist slur against the very nation from whom this government has sought to borrow millions of dollars that have been purloined by rotten officials,” Roxas said, referring to the multimillion-dollar loan that the Philippine government had sought to obtain from China to finance the NBN project.

Roxas said Apostol’s remark “showed great contempt for Filipinos with Chinese blood, including our national hero Dr. Jose Rizal.”

“Resorting to insults now will not make Lozada’s testimony less credible,” he also said.

Earlier, anti-crime crusader Teresita Ang See said Apostol’s remarks were uncalled for and were merely a diversionary tactic to skirt the real issue at hand, which is corruption.

“He should work to exile corrupt officials instead,” she said, adding that his comment “showed no respect for the (Tsinoy) community” and was “an attempt to denigrate Lozada by adding a racial dimension.” - With Christina Mendez