A neophetic lawmaker known for his combative online presence is now in the crosshairs of the country’s lead investigative agency, which says he spread falsehoods about its personnel in the aftermath of last month’s gunfire at the Senate.
The National Bureau of Investigation has lodged an ethics complaint against Cavite Fourth District Representative Francisco “Kiko” Barzaga, pointing to statements he posted on social media that the agency says misrepresented what its agents did during the May 13 incident.
According to NBI Director Melvin Matibag, the core of the grievance is Barzaga’s suggestion that bureau personnel had stormed the chamber with deadly intent. “He is somehow accusing the members of the NBI na pumasok sa Senate to attempt an assassination to some of the senators,” Matibag said.
The Wednesday night episode unfolded as speculation swirled that authorities were preparing to serve an International Criminal Court warrant on Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa. Journalists at the scene reported hearing several shots. The bureau has consistently denied any plan to arrest the senator and has said it sent no team into the Senate proper.
Matibag has maintained that a small contingent of agents was positioned only at the adjacent Government Service Insurance System compound, deployed at that agency’s request to help keep order. He has described the man who fired in response to a warning shot as a volunteer driver assisting bureau staff rather than an employee of the NBI.
Barzaga, for his part, amplified a far graver version of events online. In posts later taken down, he asserted that people had been killed inside the building and framed the night as a failed plot to gun down lawmakers and reshape the chamber’s leadership. Other accounts sympathetic to the Duterte camp circulated screenshots of his statements before he removed them.
The Cavite representative is no stranger to disciplinary proceedings. He already faces a separate ethics case in the House filed by former allies in the National Unity Party, who accused him of conduct unbecoming of a legislator, and he has been hit with complaints tied to inciting sedition and rebellion over his broadsides against officials.
Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, who reached the Senate that night, has said no fatalities were recorded during the disturbance.
