Explain 2018 net worth, Roque told

EX-PRESIDENTIAL Spokesperson Herminio “Harry” L. Roque should explain the increase in his net worth from 2016 to 2018 before a House of Representatives committee looking into the operations of illegal online casinos, a congressman said on Tuesday, urging him to surrender to authorities.

“Harry Roque appears to be acting weird and strange by mocking the Lower House’s Quad Committee instead of justifying the sudden but unexplained increase of his wealth — from P125,000 in 2016 to P125,000,000 in 2018 — which were believed to have possibly come from POGO (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators),” Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace S. Barbers said in a statement.

Mr. Roque, however, argued in a Viber message that “that has no relation in aid of legislation to POGO.”

The former presidential spokesperson was tagged by the House’s so-called “quad-committee,” consisting of the public order and safety, dangerous drugs, public accounts, and human rights panels, as having ties to illegal POGO through a firm owned by his family.

The panel cited Mr. Roque in contempt for failing to submit documents requested by lawmakers, which they said could explain the wealth boom. They subsequently served an arrest warrant against him following a detention order. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio