A Davao City-based entrepreneur and community figure has called out It’s Showtime host Vice Ganda over a skit that mocked the Senate shooting incident last May 13, saying the comedian owed the public an apology for making light of what she described as a genuinely traumatic event.
Grace Locsin, founder of Filipino Virtual Assistance and Surge Marketplace, posted on Facebook that Vice Ganda and the show’s entire staff “should issue a public apology for disrespecting those who suffer trauma.”
In her post, Locsin said the Senate incident — despite its political context — caused real fear among those present, including media workers, employees, and rank-and-file staff. “It wasn’t just Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Pia Cayetano there, or other senators, but also media, employees, rank and file who in that incident did not think of color or party, but just to survive and go home to their families,” she wrote.
Locsin also made the disclosure personal, saying she has a husband diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by three psychiatrists. “Trauma can be a real life and death experience all over again. Trauma can incapacitate, BP can go up, can cause global amnesia,” she said, adding that the skit trivialised the experience of people with genuine psychological trauma.
The skit in question aired on It’s Showtime on May 20, when Vice Ganda pulled co-host Anne Curtis behind him and quipped: “Dito ka, Anne. Nandito ‘yung kapatid na babae. Smile-smile ka d’yan,” — an apparent parody of how Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano addressed the cameras during the shooting incident, with his sister, Senator Pia Cayetano, standing behind him.
The May 13 Senate lockdown and shooting occurred amid a standoff over the attempted arrest of Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who had been holed up in the Senate building since May 11 to resist transfer to the International Criminal Court. At least seven gunshots were fired inside the compound that evening.
Locsin’s post drew divided reactions from netizens. Some agreed with her, with one commenter writing that the jokes on the Senate incident “are no longer funny.” Others pushed back, with a comment — which received over 6,000 reactions — bluntly reading: “Hahaha. They didn’t look traumatized TBH.” One commenter questioned whether Locsin’s empathy was selective, calling on her to show the same sensitivity toward those who had been red-tagged. Another said the senators “were actually traumatized after staging that drama.”
Locsin closed her post appealing for basic human decency regardless of political alignment. “It was NOT A JOKING matter. No matter which side you’re on,” she wrote. “May we remain humane as we discourse our preferences. We need to be better humans.”
