Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque’s photos were posted on the Facebook page of an ocean park in Zambales that showed his close encounter with the dolphins.
The photos posted by Ocean Adventure Subic Bay on July 1, 2020, Wednesday, was shortly deleted after it received backlash from the netizens.
The now-deleted post was captioned as “Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque enjoys an encounter with the dolphins of Ocean Adventure. We thank him for visiting our facility, as we begin gradually reopening Ocean Adventure to our guests.”
The photos received criticisms from the netizens including one from It’s Showtime’s most prominent members of “GirlTrends”, Chienna Filomeno.
The young star retweeted a post on Twitter regarding the issue with a caption of “Taray daming time makapag Ocean Adventure ah, Ursula ka mars?” which gained thousands of likes from other Twitter users.
Taray daming time makapag Ocean Adventure ah, Ursula ka mars? https://t.co/PiiWFLrX3T
— Chienna Filomeno (@ChieFilomeno) July 2, 2020
Another Kapamilya star Carmela Brosas, better known by her screen name K Brosas, also retweeted the post saying, “Ahh kc we are winning daw kaya kering mag swimming!”
https://twitter.com/kbrosas/status/1278564296415297538
Other netizen likened Roque to a cartoon character called Peter Griffin from “Family Guy,” a long-running American animated series.
https://twitter.com/micockvid19/status/1278316704829861888
Even though others made fun of Roque’s photos, some netizens also showed rage and disbelief regarding the post.
Roque already publicly apologized in a recent interview in ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo saying that it was “not his intention to offend” the public by visiting the said resort in Subic.
“I was trying to wrap up po ‘yung mga negosyo ko noong wala pa ako sa gobyerno. Hindi ko naman po magawa nung sarado po ang Bataan,” he said.
According to Roque, he stopped by the resort on his way to Mariviles, Bataan where he had some agricultural business to attend to even before the lockdown was imposed due to COVID-19.
He also added that he was the only visitor of the resort at the time and it was the town’s first day of Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ).
“Wala pong nalabag pero kung meron pong na-offend, paumanhin po. ‘Di po natin intensyon na tayo’y may ma-offend po,” he said.
Many netizens are still aggrieved saying that those people who are with a position within the government receive privileges against the implementation and regulation of the MGCQ. Wherein if it were normal citizens, authorities would have easily apprehended them just like what happened with KC Montero in a bar in Salcedo Village in Makati City.
