De Lima tells Roque: Don’t be proud of Duterte’s power

Senator Leila de Lima (left) and Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque. INQUIRER FILES

Senator Leila De Lima criticized Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque on Thursday for saying President Rodrigo Duterte could have sent the military to padlock Rappler if he really wanted to.

During a press conference on Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2018, Roque was asked if the closure of Rappler by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was linked to Duterte      complaining of certain media agencies and threatening them.

Roque responded: “If the President wanted to do that, he could have just sent the Armed Forces to their offices and padlocked them, which has been done by other regimes.”

He stressed that “The President has never done that.”

In a statement, De Lima said, “(Roque) should not … be too overly boastful about his boss’s ability to use the AFP for dirty jobs, because when the time comes, the military is also not bound to be so kind to soft-bellied opportunists who treat the AFP as if it was their very own personal attack dog, especially when his only experience in battle is out screaming opposing counsels.”

She said Roque’s “tongue-in-cheek” statement was “a veiled threat” that Malacañang would have “no second thoughts on its draconian methods against dissent and free press.”

“Roque has no qualms comparing his government to that of the Marcos dictatorship, the only regime that used the military to shut down newspapers,” she added.

“Roque should be grateful that when the mob that storms Malacañang comes, the people won’t grind him for dog food, although they are capable of it, like they were capable of it when they drove the last demagogues out of Malacañang,” she said.

In a 29-page decision dated Jan. 11 and released last Monday, the SEC revoked Rappler’s license to operate, after it “(violated) the constitutional and statutory Foreign Equity Restrictions in Mass Media enforceable through rules and laws within the mandate of the Commission.”

During his State of the Nation Address last year, Duterte threatened to have Rappler’s ownership investigated apparently after reports that it was controlled by foreigners in violation of the Constitutional requirement that local media outfits should be 100 percent Filipino owned. /cbb

READ: Rappler vows to continue bringing news: ‘We will hold the line’