When Harry met karma

It’s a cautionary tale best summed up in that oft-repeated quote, “The mills of the Gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding[ly] small.”

Call it divine retribution, but Harry Roque’s trials and tribulations as the House quad committee grills him on his possible involvement in illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos) are a long time coming—and rigorously drawn out to expose the dubious proclivities of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s erstwhile spokesperson.

Now considered a fugitive for ignoring House summons after again being held in contempt and ordered arrested, Roque has elicited little sympathy from a public who recalls his pompous display of pelf and power under the previous administration.

The House’s contempt order stems from Roque’s belligerent refusal to submit key documents that, during the Aug. 22 quad committee hearing, he himself had promised to turn over six days later to dispute the committee’s allegations of his links to several illegal Pogos.

Bianca and Hammie

Among the documents that Roque was asked to submit are his statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth from 2016-2022; his and his wife Mylah’s income tax returns from 2014-2022; the trust agreement on the transfer of shares in a family corporation to a lawyer in 2020, and the deed of sale for the 1.8-hectare property in Parañaque that he claimed his family had sold. The proceeds from that sale accounts for the exponential jump in the Biancham Holdings and Trading Inc. company’s assets from P125,000 in 2014 to P67.7 million in 2018, Roque said in response to Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro’s query.

Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, the lead chair of the quad committee, has directly linked Biancham to Lucky South 99, the Porac, Pampanga Pogo hub where documents bearing Roque’s signature were found during a raid for human trafficking issues.

Citing “overwhelming circumstantial evidence, Barbers asked: “Who owns the house [in Tuba, Benguet] where the Chinese fugitive, [an IT expert for Lucky South 99,] was found? [Roque] said PH2 [Corp.]. Who owns PH2? Fifty-two percent of PH2 is owned by Biancham Corp. Who [are] Biancham [and] PH2? These are owned by the Roque family,” Barbers said, referring to Biancham Holdings and Trading Inc. that was reportedly named after Roque’s children Bianca and Hammie.

Self-righteous attacks

Roque has described the quad committee hearings as “power tripping” and “political harassment” against the Dutertes and him as their “outspoken ally.” But while his close ties to an administration widely condemned for its bloody drug war doesn’t help Roque any, it is his self-righteous attacks on former justice secretary Leila de Lima during House hearings on her alleged drug links that dug his grave.

In 2016, Roque was among the most vocal inquisitor of De Lima who was detained for almost seven years for what were widely seen as trumped-up drug charges and payback after the former human rights commissioner slammed Duterte for extrajudicial killings during his term as Davao City’s longtime mayor. De Lima was recently acquitted—under the new Marcos administration—of all charges for lack of evidence.

Roque has accused the House of exposing his personal life that, he insisted, was irrelevant to the hearing—only to be reminded of how he had similarly pried into De Lima’s private affairs with his salacious speculations on her past relationships.

“Ganun ang sinabi mo kay Leila de Lima noon eh. You were the judge, the jury, the spectator,” Barbers said.

Travel companion

Not to be overlooked was the former Palace official’s harsh greeting on De Lima’s first year in jail: “Happy anniversary on your first year of detention. May you spend the rest of your life in jail,” he said mockingly, before describing the former senator as “the mother of all drug lords.”

Roque’s unfounded words would come back to haunt him during the quad committee hearings when documents found in the raided Pogo hub raised disturbing questions, with netizens connecting the dots not too kindly. After all, why get a former male pageant winner as travel companion when a caregiver or nurse would have attended to his health concerns better? What were this guy’s qualifications that merited a monthly pay of some P54,000 as Roque’s executive assistant? What’s behind their joint account that had a P3 million deposit at one time? As one allowed to stay, rent-free, in the Pogo hub, could the guy have had enough means to be an incorporator in one of the Pogo companies as indicated in documents found during a raid there?

With his wife likewise refusing to attend the House hearings and spitting out salty words at Barbers, and Roque’s daughter now asking the Supreme Court to issue a writ of amparo against the quad committee, there seems to be no end in sight for the very public travails of the once high and mighty Harry. If anything, his self-inflicted tumble shows that life may not always be fair, but karma is inevitable. Always.