Duterte’s spokesman Roque made news as rights advocate

Harry Roque had been in the news even before he entered politics as a representative of the Kabayan party-list in the House and now as spokesman of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Roque, a human rights advocate with the Center for International Law or Centerlaw, was among those who filed the supplemental impeachment complaint against then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2007 in connection with the allegedly anonalous NBN-ZTE deal.

According to Joseph Morong's report on "24 Oras", Roque was also one of the lawyers of the families of some of the victims in the Ampatuan massacre in 2009.

In 2014, Roque took on the case of Filipino transgender woman Jennifer Laude who was found strangled to death inside an Olongapo City motel.

The accused in the case, US serviceman Joseph Scott Pemberton, was found guilty of homicide and was sentenced to six to ten years in prison.

A graduate of the UP College of Law, Roque has a master's degree in law from the London School of Economics. —NB, GMA News