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Pimentel apologizes for 'insertion' remark through a prayer


He decided to say sorry through a prayer. After making a blatant reference to Sen. Manuel “Mar" Roxas II’s sex life, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Nene" Pimentel Jr. has decided to apologize for the “insertion" remark that he made during Monday’s plenary session on the C5 road project controversy. Pimentel made the apology through a prayer that he recited before the opening of the Senate session on Tuesday. The senior lawmaker, however, did not categorically apologize to TV host Korina Sanchez. After Pimentel's remark, Sanchez's husband, Senator Manuel "Mar" Roxas II, urged the Senate minority leader to ask an apology from the TV host. "Dear Lord, we, your senators, are embroiled in a stormy debate over a controversy involving a colleague of ours. In the heat of the discussion, some of us tend to use words that are coarse and vulgar. To those who I might have hurt in this chamber by the use of intemperate language or unseemly expressions, I apologize and beg their forgiveness through you, Lord," said Pimentel. At the height of Monday’s debate on the ethics case faced by Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. in connection with the "double insertion" of P200 million in the 2008 budget for the C5 road project, Roxas asserted that he never pushed for any insertions or amendments in proposed national budgets involving his projects. "I have no insertion on any matter. In fact, I have no insertion period because we were in the minority. Let alone an insertion for a road to pass through any such property," Roxas said. In what could be regarded as the lowest point of the heated session, Pimentel replied: "Well, I'm sure that after your marriage you've had some insertions." Roxas felt insulted by Pimentel's remark and demanded that "it be removed from the record" because that was "an affront on my wife." On Tuesday, Roxas, who remained hurt and offended by the remark, said Pimentel did not need to apologize to him, but to Sanchez. “Hindi naman kailangang mag-apologize (sa akin) si Senator Nene. Mag-apologize siya sa misis ko kasi siya ang tinamaan ng kanyang kabastusan," Roxas said at a press conference after the 64th anniversary celebration of the Liberal Party (LP). (He doesn’t need to apologize to me. He should apologize to my wife because she was the one affected by his rude remark.) During the same press conference, LP senatorial candidates had likewise slammed Pimentel for making the remark. "At the age of Nene, he should know what is right and what is wrong," said LP senatorial candidate Sonia Roco, wife of the late Senator Raul Roco. Before he decided to make the apology through a prayer, Pimentel said in a text message to GMANews.TV Tuesday that he was willing to say sorry to anyone he had hurt with his remark. "If I hurt anyone, [I] am ready to apologize but not on imagined political partisan slights," he said. However, when the senior lawmaker was asked by reporters if he would heed Roxas' call for him to apologize to Sanchez, Pimentel said, "How did Korina come into the picture? I have no quarrel with Korina." "I have respect for her, the same respect I have for other ladies," he added. - Amita Legaspi and Johanna Camille Sisante/ARCS/RSJ, GMANews.TV

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