FORMER Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Rowena Guanzon on Sunday addressed a viral video of her raising her voice inside a Makati mall, saying the incident stemmed from a confrontation with a Chinese couple who allegedly told her to leave the establishment after she coughed once.
In a Facebook post, Guanzon said she was at Rockwell Mall on Saturday night when she suddenly felt her blood pressure spike. “Na high blood ako kanina… Ang taas. Medics had to assist me in Rockwell Mall,” she wrote.
She said the encounter began after she coughed due to an itchy throat, prompting a Chinese national, whom she identified only as “Chiong,” to tell her she was “contagious” and should not be inside the mall. “He said, ‘You are coughing, you should not be in the mall. Leave,’” Guanzon recalled.
Offended, Guanzon said she reminded the man that he had no authority to order anyone to leave a public space.
“I told him if you are sick or afraid to get sick, you should not be in a mall. You have no right to tell me to leave,” she wrote. “Am pootah, siya nga ang hindi taga-Makati ako pa papalayasin niya.”
Guanzon said she demanded an apology, but the man refused and instead “looked at me head to toe.” She added that he allegedly asked, “Can’t you afford to buy a mask?” a remark she described as insulting and condescending. “Kung maka-utos parang amo ko siya. Matapobreng hindi naman mayaman,” she said, adding she snapped back at him: “You don’t even wear a Rolex or a Gucci. Matapobre.”
The exchange escalated, and Guanzon said she later filed a complaint at the Makati Central Police Station. She noted that the man’s wife apologized, but he did not. “Dinilatan pa ako,” she wrote.
Guanzon, a known critic of the Marcos administration, also questioned the conduct of the couple’s lawyer after the man allegedly fled while police were reading his Miranda rights.
“Mga atorni, gagawin n’yo ba ’yon? Itakas ang kliyente n’yo? Hindi ba that is against our code of conduct as lawyers?” she said. “Mananagot ka din kagaya ni Martin Looter.”