Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les says the Op­po­si­tion is pre­pared to es­ca­late its con­cerns over the treat­ment of Op­po­si­tion Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment be­yond Par­lia­ment, tak­ing the mat­ter to re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies.

Speak­ing days af­ter the Op­po­si­tion staged a walk­out dur­ing de­bate on the Vic­tims’ Rights Bill, Gon­za­les ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing its par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty and pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers to sup­press Op­po­si­tion voic­es in the Low­er House.

Gon­za­les said, “We walked out. We went to our Op­po­si­tion cau­cus room. We spoke as a team, and we left Par­lia­ment and let the Gov­ern­ment sit there and speak to them­selves. Now, this is about the sec­ond or third time we have walked out of Par­lia­ment based on sim­i­lar con­duct. It is time. I don’t be­lieve that we should con­tin­ue to walk out. I think it is time we take it to a dif­fer­ent lev­el.