BY: GILBERT PILAYRE
The Faustian Bargain of Former Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque
Johann Georg Faust (1480-1541) was a legendary German scholar who appears in early modern folklore and literature (Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus -1604) and from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust (1808/1832). He was a German itinerant alchemist, astrologer, and magician. He was also called a conman and heretic by contemporaries. Records show him performing magical tricks and casting horoscopes across southern Germany. He was accused of fraud multiple times. Before his demise, tales of him making a pact with the devil (Mephistopheles) circulated before his demise. It was said that he exchanged his soul for 24 years of magical powers and worldly pleasures. Then the devil collected his due.
Harry Roque was the former spokesperson of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte who became the 16th President of the Republic of the Philippines from 2016-2022) and known for his hardline anti-drug campaign, controversial rhetoric. After his presidency, he returned to private life in Davao City, though he he continues to make political statements and remains influential in Philippine politics, especially through his family like daughter Vice-President Sara Duterte, as well as, sons Congressman Paulo Duterte and Mayor Sebastian Duterte. According to police reports and independent human rights institutions, there were about 7,000 deaths between July 1, 2016 – May 2022. Broader estimates – including international bodies reviewing the cases suggest a likely death toll of 12,00 to 30,000 since the start of Duterte’s “drug war”. Some local and civil society groups have likewise referenced figures within this broad range arguing that many killings went unreported or misclassified. Human Rights Watch research has found that police are falsifying evidence to justify the unlawful killings. Despite growing calls for an investigation, Duterte has vowed to continue the campaign. Large-scale extrajudicial violence as a crime solution was a marker of Duterte’s 22-year tenure as mayor of Davao City and the cornerstone of his presidential campaign. As Mayor of Davao City, Duterte was criticized by groups such as Human Rights Watch for the extrajudicial killing of hundreds of street children, petty criminals and drug users carried out by the Davao Death Squad, a vigilante group with which he was allegedly involved. Duterte has alternately confirmed and denied his involvement in the alleged Davao Death Squad killings. Throughout his presidency, Duterte repeatedly incited violence, making public statements that authorized and promoted killings while dehumanizing alleged criminals. He publicly named suspects – some later killed in police operations – and urged officials to commit violent acts against drug dealers and users. In one of his most blatant calls for violence, Duterte ordered the country’s top customs official to “shoot and kill” drug smugglers. In October 2016, he said he would be “happy to slaughter” millions of drug addicts—drawing a chilling comparison to Hitler’s mass murder of Jews.
Duterte dismissed collateral damage entirely. His bloodthirsty campaign slaughtered children—innocent lives cut down in cold blood. Most chilling of all: he explicitly ordered police to fabricate evidence whenever they murdered the wrong person, systemically covering up state-sponsored executions with planted guns and drugs.
Meanwhile, the spokesperson justifies all of this in the media. Roque, formerly a human rights lawyer who taught the subject at the University of the Philippines, has no qualms about justifying such actions.
Now that Duterte is detained at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, Mr. Roque faces his own set of challenges, too. The Philippine government recently cancelled his passport citing his involvement in illegal activities. Consequently, Dutch authorities have severely restricted his movements, fueling speculation that his deportation to the Philippines is imminent.
Harry Roque’s journey from human rights champion to the chief apologist for a regime of mass killings is the modern Philippine embodiment of the Faustian bargain. He sold not just his integrity, but his legal and moral authority, to shield the perpetrator of crimes against humanity. Now, as the master architect of the violence, Rodrigo Duterte, is detained and facing the International Criminal Court, the reckoning has inevitably arrived for the enabler. Roque’s canceled passport and restricted movements under Dutch authority are more than just bureaucratic hurdles—they are the sound of the contract coming due. The speculation surrounding his imminent deportation to the Philippines is not merely a political story; it is the final, chilling promise of the folklore fulfilled. After years of impunity, the net of global accountability is tightening, signaling the long-awaited and profound moment when justice, denied for so long to the thousands of victims, may finally, irrevocably, be served.