Claiming that too much democracy is bad for the country, Negros Oriental 3rd district Rep. Arnie Teves spoke on the plenary floor Monday afternoon, Jan. 23 about his desire to pursue a law against online bashers.

"I rise here again today to talk about democracy and improving the lives of the Filipino people," Teves said as he began his privilege speech on the first session day of the year.

The firebrand lawmaker went on to say that he thinks the Philippines has "too much democracy".

"I'm more on, I'm more bent on sa nasosobrahan na tayo sa demokrasiya (we have too much democracy). Parang hindi na tama na sobra na yung demokrasiya (I doesn't seem right that we have too much democracy)," he said.

"What are some specific examples of this? Unang-una, yung bashing. Yung bashing sa social media, sobra na eh, parang hindi na tama (Foremost of this bashing. Bashing on social media is too much, it doesn't seem right)," Teves said.

The Visayas solon said that while he doesn't mind freedom of speech and the freedom to criticize, bashing "doesn't seem right".

"Tingin ko kailangan na to gawan ng batas (I think there has to be a law for this)" Teves said.

"I have a bill close to this but I cannot speak about it because di ba mayroon tayong ruling dito na kung bill mo naka-file na, hindi mo na pwedeng i-ano sa privilege speech (we have a rule saying that if you have a bill filed, you can no longer include it in your privilege speech)," he noted.

Teves insisted that bashing is "bad for most people".

"It's not because I am being bashed; not so often, but I am also a victim of bashing but in fact, iba naman ang reaction ko sa bashers ko eh (I have a different reaction to bashers). I invite them to follow my page para ma-notify sila at mas madal sila maka-bash (so that they'll get notifications and find it easier to bash me)."

"Jokingly aside," he said, "I ask that we put limits on too much democracy na hindi na nakakaganda sa kalagayan ng ating bayan (which is bad to our country’s situation)."