Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile on Tuesday posted a cryptic status on his verified Facebook page amid political tensions related to former president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
“What a pathetic and ghastly irony! Those who allegedly committed unwarranted and [violent] acts of injustice are now drowning and gasping for justice. In their desperate distress, they grasp at straws for help and called for widespread national prayer rallies to a God they called “STUPID!!!” Enrile wrote.
The lawyer-politician’s post appears to be alluding to the current legal troubles of Duterte and with the ICC and its effects on his support base, describing it political “karma” and a “tragic miscalculation.”
“They blame nearly everyone else–except themselves–for their miseries which they themselves created because of their lust, arrogance, hubris, and hunger for power and pelf. They now claw for whatever support and sympathy… they could muster to extricate themselves from… the tight legal trap that they themselves dug for themselves,” he added.
Although Enrile did not expound which individuals or groups he was referring to in his status update, he recently made recent posts mentioning either Duterte or his administration’s drug war.
“The current legal problem of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte is not caused by Philippine laws. His legal problem is caused by laws enforceable by the [ICC]. It is not correct to blame the Philippine government for the current legal problem of ex-PRRD,” Enrile posted on March 11.
He likewise questioned whether drug war victims were accorded due process, posting on March 15: “Were they presumed innocent before they were summarily killed or killed with impunity or by ‘Tokhang’?”
As of this posting, Enrile’s status updated garnered 277 mixed reactions—like, laughter, and anger—with at least 93 comments, largely expressing pro-Duterte views, and shared 19 times on Facebook.