LAWYER Harry Roque has rejoined the Duterte Cabinet, assuming his former post as presidential spokesman, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said on Monday.
Panelo, who was spokesman before Roque’s return, said he would remain as presidential legal counsel and “provide legal advice to the President on matters requiring the latter’s actions, and issue statements relative thereto.”
Asked about the change in the communications team of the President, Panelo said, “The present crisis requires a new tack in messaging.”
He also said: “The Office of the President welcomes Secretary Roque back to the Cabinet and wishes him all the best as he assumes the role of the Chief Executive’s spokesman, a post he has already held in the past… The Office of the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel will be working together with the Office of the presidential spokesperson, as well as with all the departments, in pursuing the national policy of the government, specially on COVID-19, and thereafter,” he said.
Roque was House member representing the party-list group Luntiang Pilipinas before he first served as presidential spokesman starting in October 2017. He resigned in October 2018 to run for senator in the May 2019 elections but abandoned his senatorial plan due to health reasons.
Roque, who had been advised by President Duterte against running for senator because he thought he would not win, is a human rights lawyer who represented, among others, victims of the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, the family of the slain environmental advocate and journalist Gerry Ortega, and the family of the slain Filipino transgender Jennifer Laude.
