Human rights lawyer Chel Diokno‘s face mask made online buzz when he filed his certificate of candidacy for senator under the Katipunan ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino party-list on Thursday morning.
The former Otso Diretso bet submitted his COC on the penultimate day of its filing at the Harbor Garden Tent on Sofitel hotel wearing double masks.
The top layer mask showed a cartoon version of his lower face showing his pearly whites. His face mask also had the phrase “Ngipin ng Batas.”
A look at Diokno’s Facebook page reveals that he has adopted the phrase “Kay Chel Diokno, may ngipin ang batas!”
His picture that was posted by the Commission on Elections on its Twitter account has reached 16,700 likes as Filipinos took notice of his face mask.
“Love the mask, Sir,” a Twitter user said in response to his image.
“I love the mask, sir!! @ChelDiokno #ChelDioknoSaSenado, #NgipinNgBatas,” another online user commented.
“Using what they thought would be your weakness and look who’s laughing now,” a different Filipino likewise said.
Diokno was lambasted by President Rodrigo Duterte in his weekly pre-recorded “Talk to the People” in April 2020.
It came after the senatorial aspirant expressed his willingness to defend individuals who have been summoned by the National Bureau of Investigation over critical social media posts.
At that time, Diokno shared that the NBI was going after Filipinos who were “simply airing their sentiments on the government’s response to COVID-19” and then revealed that he has taken a case of a social media user.
“Ang dami nang namamatay, pati frontliners, pero imbis na COVID, kritiko ang gusto nilang puksain,” he said before.
Duterte took a jab at the senatorial aspirant and said that the latter “speaks like a janitor.”
“At saka tumakbo kang senador, eh hindi ka binoto ng tao. Alam mo kung bakit? Puwede kitang biruin? ‘Wag kang magalit…. Kasi kalaki ng ngipin mo. Magsalita ka, kalahati ng panga mo lumalabas. Kaya sa… ako pa sa iyo… Totoo. Tanungin mo ang Pilipino, nakikinig ngayon. Kung magsalita ka ng… Kalaki ng ngipin mo parang…” he previously remarked.
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Diokno ran for the 2019 midterm elections as a senatorial candidate under Otso Diretso but lost.
He recently joined the KANP party and is running as its sole national candidate in the 2022 elections.
Diokno is also a counsel to two of the petitions that were lodged in the Supreme Court against the Anti-Terror Law.
He is the son of former senator Jose W. Diokno who is regarded as the “father of human rights advocacy in the Philippines.”