President Benigno Aquino III's spokesman continued to fire away Tuesday at leftist groups that organized and supported a transport strike in Metro Manila and major cities Monday, calling them "onion-skinned" and their strike a "perjuicio" (inconvenience).
In his Twitter account, Edwin Lacierda needled the leftists for getting hotheaded when they were being criticized for Monday's strike.
"Noticed how leftists are so onion-skinned? Tinawag lang perjuicio ang strike, pumputok ang butchi nila! Mahilig bumanat pero mga pikon pala (You call the strike an inconvenience, they get mad. They like to criticize but when you criticize them, they get offended)!" he said.
When told he had to separate personal opinion and government duty, Lacierda replied, "Why? Who came up with those rules?"
In response to other tweets reminding him that he is in government and should take the hits "and have no right to be pikon," Lacierda said his "bosses" were "the guys who rode with me on the jeepney (Monday)."
"Duh! Of course we take hits in stride! Excuse me, my bosses were not happy with the transport strike!" he added.
The tweets by Lacierda prompted a blog site, the Citizen Media Blog Watch, to comment that "this government is getting more arrogant by the day. Not to mention that it is turning to Twitterverse to vent its cheap shots." (http://blogwatch.tv/2011/09/reactions-on-dawende-and-abi_valte-tweets-on-transport-strike/)
Blog Watch also criticized Lacierda's deputy Abigail Valte for saying that more people tweeted about being affected by the strike than about the "issues" of oil prices that prompted the strike.
"Is this indication @govph is getting more arrogant by the day," said "momblogger" in the Blog Watch site.
"Irresponsible, nakakahiya, utak wangwang si @dawende," added venzie.
"Nakakainis na maraming katulad ni @dawende mag-isip sa PHL gov't. Calling names & tagging instead of addressing people's concerns! Great." added "charlesbunag." — TJD
