By Liezelle Soriano

Lawmakers from the House of Representatives slammed Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Teodoro Locsin Jr. over his “nasty tweet” pertaining to Palestinian children amid the bloody Israel-Hamas conflict.

Lanao del Sur Representative Zia Alonto Adiong said that there is no room in Philippine society for such a post on social media especially coming from a government official like Locsin.

“Under no circumstance is the killing of Palestinian children justified, and it is no laughing matter when more than a thousand Palestinian children have lost their lives in Gaza within this past week alone,” Adiong said.

“May your (Locsin) statement land on deaf ears. It is unbecoming for any Filipino, much more a high official, to visit genocidal machinations upon innocent children of any nation. An ambassador who is tasked to represent the best of our nation, a defender of our nation’s interests, must espouse our nation’s commitment to peace and humanity,” the lawmaker added.

Locsin earlier tweeted: “That’s why Palestinian children should be killed; they might grow up to be gullible as innocent Palestinians letting Hamas launch rockets at Israel; not that they could stop them but that’s no excuse. They are Muslims. They could stage mass suicide attacks against Hamas until the latter ran out of bullets.”

The tweet on “X” (formerly Twitter) was already deleted and Locsin has apologized for his statement.

But the damage has been done.

Meanwhile, Kabayan party-list Representative Ron Salo said that Locsin’s act was highly irresponsible.

“While Ambassador Locsin has apologized and stated it was a ‘sarcastic response,’ his social media post may be perceived as the official stand of the Philippine government,” Salo said.

“Worse, it jeopardizes our Filipino diplomats particularly in the Middle East who may be perceived as sharing his opinion,” he added.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has clarified that the statement of Locsin was personal and the former disassociated itself from the latter.

“The Department of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines completely disassociates itself from the statement made on Twitter by Ambassador Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr. Such statement was made in his strictly personal capacity,” DFA said.

(ai/mnm)