PRESIDENTIAL Spokesman Harry Roque condemned the “malicious” report, which allegedly portrayed him as a war criminal.
In a statement issued last Sunday, Roque singled out the article of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI) on the protest held by Bayan-USA in the restaurant in New York, where he was supposedly entertaining several foreign missions.
The demonstrators accused Roque of being a war criminal and should not be nominated in the International Law Commission (ILC).
Roque said the article was “editorialized” by the reporter, who wrote it, when it claimed he did not comment on the issue.
“Your reporter never even interviewed me; that is indubitable,” Roque said addressing the PDI management.
“By publishing (what is clearly an opinion) that I did not answer the accusations, PDI effectively represented that the questions it published were legitimate. So now PDI imputes that I am a war criminal and a human rights violator,” he added.
Questionable info?
ROQUE also hit another PDI article regarding an Asia-Pacific lawyers’ group also opposing his ILC nomination.
In the said piece, he questioned why PDI “legitimized” the Confederation of Lawyers of Asia and the Pacific (Colap) despite the lack of credible information about its existence.
He also called out the article for its supposed “wrong” claim that the entire University of the Philippines-Diliman also opposed his ILC nomination.
“The UP Diliman Executive Council, led by Chancellor Fidel R. Nemenzo, is the one that issued a statement against me. The Diliman executive council is NOT the UP system,” Roque said.
Roque also hit PDI for using the statements of the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) against his ILC nomination without qualifying that “both are headed by members of the opposition who are running for office.”
FLAG is chaired by Jose Manuel “Chel” T. Diokno, who is running for senator in the 2022 polls, while the NUPL is led by Edre U. Olalia.