Sen. Risa Hontiveros was on Monday charged with wiretapping, obstruction of justice and kidnapping at the Office of the Ombudsman.
Former Negros Oriental Rep. Jacinto Paras and lawyers Eligio Mallari and Nestor Ifurong accused Hontiveros of obstruction of justice for her refusal to turn over three minors who witnessed the killing of Kian Loyd de los Santos to the Public Attorney’s Office and the National Bureau of Investigation.
They said the senator took custody of the three minors from August 19 to September 3.
They alleged that Hontiveros “has committed the crime of inducing a minor to abandon his home, penalized under Article 271 of the Revised Penal Code as amended. As stated earlier, she admitted the fact that after her inducing the minors to abandon their parental home, she took custody of them and placed them in an undisclosed location.”
The complainants claimed that the senator violated the anti-wiretapping law when she photographed the text messages send to Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre 2nd.
“The secret photographing or recording by the conspirators Hontiveros-Baraquel and the photographer (John Doe) using a camera to record the text messages found in Aguirre [2nd]’s cellphone without the permission of Aguirre and the other communicator...is a violation of the anti-wiretapping law,” they said.
Hontiveros said the complaint “is a desperate attempt to deflect public attention away from their text conversation inadvertently captured by someone’s camera lens, which caught them red-handed plotting against me during a Senate hearing inside the Senate.”
“Hindi ito dapat pag-aksayahan ng panahon at pansin ng mamamayan. We will not be distracted. Tuloy ang ating kampanya para sa katarungan at para panagutin si Secretary Aguirre at pagbitiwin siya sa kanyang puwesto (The public should not waste time and attention on this. We will not be distracted. Our campaign for justice and to hold Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre 2nd liable and to make him resign from his post continues),” she added.
The senator earlier sought Aguirre’s resignation for alleged “unethical conduct,” citing text messages between him and a certain Cong Jing.
She alleged that Aguirre ordered Cong Jing to expedite the case to be filed against her.