Senator Leila De Lima
INQUIRER file photo/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ
(Updated 1:03 p.m.)
“A truth-bender for hire.”
This was how detained Sen. Leila de Lima described Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, a human-rights lawyer now serving as a mouthpiece for President Rodrigo Duterte, whose administration is plagued by issues of human-rights violations.
“Harry Roque thinks that he can manipulate reality by greasing the media with ‘pan de sal’ and appearing to take their side against his fellow propaganda artist, (Asec. Mocha) Uson, in their dramatized conflict about the appalling treatment that certain vocal and independent media organizations are receiving,” De Lima said in a statement issued on Friday.
“But that is all that he is doing: he is attempting to bend reality to his will. Like the good, little propaganda artist and political manipulator that his principal wants him to be,” she added.
De Lima said Roque—who has lawyered for many high-profile cases like the Maguindanao Massacre and Jennifer Laude murder case—proved to be a “great disappointment” to the human rights movement.
READ: Harry Roque named Duterte’s spokesman
“He proved to be a great disappointment to the human rights movement because, previously, he projected himself to be the defender of the oppressed, even lawyering for high publicity cases about abused women, yet he said things that no true human rights advocate would make about another person,” she said.
The senator also slammed Roque for his duplicity by telling her that “he wishes me well, yet he was at the forefront of the slut-shaming spectacle and despicable treatment I received at the hands of members of the House of Representatives last year.”
During the congressional investigation on the so-called illegal drug trade in the National Bilibid Prisons (NBP) last year, Roque, then Kabayan Party-list representative, zeroed in on the love affair of De Lima with her driver, Ronnie Dayan. Roque has drawn criticisms for his “indecent” questioning, even from his own party.
“He also betrays himself to be the political operator he is aspiring to be because, while he purports to take the high ground by wishing me well, he goes on to say that I “did not do anything” as CHR Chairperson and Secretary of Justice,” De Lima said.
“That’s a lie, and he knows it. A convenient lie for him and his principal because it obscures the reality of why I am being persecuted,” she added.
Only time will tell whether Roque will live up to his human rights advocacy, De Lima noted.
“But to what personal end would one such as he – who has, for years, marketed himself as a human rights lawyer – would make such an obvious heel turn remains to be seen,” she said. /jpv
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