Roque loses cool over UP journalism professor’s remark on DND pact: I’m not duty-bound to follow him

By Prince Golez

Palace Spokesman Harry Roque on Wednesday lost his cool over a suggestion to denounce the decision of the Department of National Defense (DND) to terminate the 1989 agreement with the University of the Philippines (UP) barring military and police from entering its campuses.

In an interview with CNN Philippines, a furious Roque said he was not “duty-bound” to follow UP journalism associate professor Danilo Arao’s challenge for UP faculty and alumni who are President Rodrigo Duterte’s “top-level officials” to condemn the unilateral abrogation.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana had said the pact’s termination would protect students from recruitment activities of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

“Why am I duty-bound to follow anything that Professor Arao says? You made it appear that it is compulsory for me to follow him,” Roque told CNN’s The Source Host Pinky Webb.

“I spent more time in UP than him. I even have an even more senior academic than him. So it was not a fair question,” the official said who claimed to have spent more than 15 years in UP as a student and another 15 as a professor.

In a January 18 tweet, Arao dared members of the Duterte administration who studied and worked at UP to condemn the DND-UP termination.

“This disregards everything UP stands for. Should they remain silent, a six-word question: Where is your honor and excellence?” he also wrote.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)