De Lima to Roque: Flight is indicative of guilt
Mamamayang Liberal party-list representative-elect Leila de Lima at the proclamation ceremony for party-list groups at the Manila Hotel Tent City. (好色先生TV/John Eric Mendoza)
MANILA, Philippines — Mamamayang Liberal party-list representative – elect Leila De Lima, on Monday urged former presidential spokesperson to return to the country and face the accusations against him.
Roque, who is the subject of an arrest warrant over his alleged involvement in a scam hub in Pampanga, said he will continue to
“My only message to him is, he should come back here face the accusations against him,” De Lima said in a press conference in Manila Hotel Tent City, partly in Filipino, after the proclamation of her party-list group.
“He has a warrant of arrest already and he knows that, as a lawyer, there is such a principle or a dictum in law that flight is indicative of guilt, so he should face it,” De Lima added.
“He should not just hide abroad or hide under the application for asylum.”
The May 8 was based on a qualified human trafficking case filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) against Roque and several others for their alleged involvement in the operations of scam hub Lucky South 99 in Porac, Pampanga.
The DOJ noted Roque’s supposed participation was not just limited to being a lawyer for Whirlwind Corporation—the company which leased land to Lucky South 99—but he was also the alleged representative of the Philippine offshore gaming operator firm.
Roque, however, has already applied for asylum since March 19, or months before the issuance of the arrest warrant.
READ: De Lima dares Harry Roque to surrender: Ako nga hinarap ko eh
De Lima, who faced drug-related charges and was arrested in 2017, had always maintained her innocence, saying that the charges were baseless and in retaliation to the investigation she conducted in the Senate on former President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody drug war.
She was detained for six years, eight months, and 21 days before being acquitted last June.
Roque once told De Lima: “May you spend the rest of your life in jail.”
Aside from the arrest warrant, the House quad committee held Roque in contempt and was ordered detained in the House for the second time.
In reaction to this previous development, De Lima said in October last year: “All of you knows all of the things he said to me, and look at him now, he’s on the run, instead of facing the rule of law.”
