JUSTICE Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla yesterday said he would seek clarification from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) how former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was able to obtain his alleged three passports.
Remulla on Monday said the Department of Justice (DOJ) has filed a petition seeking to cancel Roque’s passport, but he declined to say in what court the petition was filed.
Roque, in a statement, branded as “fake news” Remulla’s statement that he has three Philippine passports.
In an interview, Remulla said they have information that Roque has two regular and one diplomatic passports, which he said is not allowed by law.
“Ang Philippine passport (na) meron siya, two or three… kaya aalamin pa naming (He has Philippine passports, two or three of them… We want to know how this happened),” Remulla told reporters in a chance interview after he, Transport Secretary Vince Dizon and immigration officials inspected the Immigration Border Control points at Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA).
“We will ask the DFA about it kasi DFA ang gumagawa niyan, hindi naman DOJ, hindi naman immigration (We will ask the DFA about it since it is the DFA’s job, and not the DOJ [Department of Justice] and not the [Bureau of] immigration),” he said.
“We will ask the DFA to cooperate with us.
Ipapahalukay namin ‘yan kasi hindi dapat ginagawa ‘yan. Ibig sabihin we are petitioning for the cancellation of these passports kasi nga fugitive from the law na siya (We will ask the DFA to cooperate with us. We will dig deeper since what he has done is not allowed. We are petitioning for the cancellation of these passports since he is already a fugitive from the law),” he also said.
“Dapat nga isa lang ‘yan. Bawal ‘yun. Dapat isa lang (He should only have one. It is not allowed to have more than one [passport]),” he stressed.
Remulla said Roque can only have two passports – one regular and one diplomatic – if he is still a government official, which at this time, is not the case.
Diplomatic passports are issued to government officials.
“Di bale sana kung opisyal pa rin siya, meron siyang diplomatic, tapos meron syang regular (He can have two – a regular passport and a diplomatic passport, if he is a government official,” he said.
Roque, who is in the Netherlands where he has applied for political asylum, said: “For the record, I am currently using one regular passport, because the other regular one (still current) has no more blank pages. The Department of Foreign Affairs would certainly know that the previous current one is cancelled without prejudice.”
He said he has surrendered his regular passport to Dutch authorities as part of his asylum application.
Roque also clarified that he no longer has a diplomatic passport.
“I am no longer using a diplomatic passport since I left government several years ago,” he said, adding the government is peddling fake news about him.
“Mga kababayan, mag-ingat po tayo sa naglipanang fake news. Itotodo na nila ang paninira sa akin (My fellow countrymen, beware of fake news being peddled against me. They will use it to further sully my name),” he said.
Roque said the DOJ’s move to have his passport cancelled is “politically-motivated.”
“Cancelling my passport, I reiterate, is part of the Marcos Jr. administration’s efforts to silence me as a vocal critic and ally of the Dutertes,” he said, adding that the move is “premature” due to the motion for reconsideration that he filed asking the DOJ to dismiss his case.
“In my motion for reconsideration, I stated that not a single evidence was presented to prove that I committed the overt act of organizing, providing financial support or directing other persons to commit any act of human trafficking,” he said.
He also pointed out that no prosecution witness has testified that he committed an overt act of conspiracy or trafficking.
“I was not even mentioned in the affidavits of the alleged victims of human trafficking,” he added.
Remulla said Roque is now considered a fugitive after an Angeles City court issued a warrant of arrest against him and 48 others in connection with their alleged involvement in a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) hub in Porac, Pampanga that was raided by authorities last year on allegations of illegal activities.
The DOJ has filed qualified human trafficking charges against Roque. Qualified human trafficking is a non-bailable offense.
In the same interview, Remulla said Roque fled the country using the southern backdoor.
“Sa Tawi-Tawi dumaan ‘yan. Malamang nag-bangka o nag-speed boat papuntang Malaysia via Sipadan, Sabah (He exited from Tawi-Tawi. He might have used a boat, a speed boat, to Malaysia via Sipadan, Sabah),” he said.
Another high-profile fugitive, dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo, was reported to have also used the southern backdoor when he fled the country last year to Malaysia before ending up in Jakarta, where Indonesian authorities arrested and detained her.
Guo was subsequently flown back to Manila and is now detained at the Pasig City jail due to the string of criminal cases filed against her stemming from her role in the operation of a POGO hub in Bamban town in Tarlac.
