The projected appointment of Rep. Harry Roque as presidential spokesman with the rank of cabinet secretary confirms his dubious role in defending the President’s wayward policies even as he is nominally a Deputy Minority Leader of the House of Representatives.

Roque has minimized the grave import of the unabated extra-judicial killings related to the President’s deadly campaign against the drug menace; he voted for the confirmation of the declaration of marital law and its extension; and he did not vote against the reduction of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) budget to P1,000 and even called for a zero budget for the CHR.

Roque failed to criticize Duterte’s predisposition to authoritarian rule and intention to declare a revolutionary government and he advocated for the creation of a panel to investigate the Ombudsman and recommend her impeachment for unwarranted and politically motivated reasons.

The charade is now over as Roque is liberated and obligated to be the President’s official apologist.

To be the communications czar of Duterte, one has to be an expert mortician undertaking the post-mortem embellishment of the President’s crude and unfounded pronouncements and policies, and must be able to subdue one’s conscience in order to emote platitudes.

We wish Roque well in his job of justifying the unjustifiable and defending the indefensible pronouncements and policies of the President.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN