Marcos rejects ICC probe...

miscalculation” in the disputed sea. In his bilateral meeting with Marcos in Beijing in January, Xi promised to “find a compromise and find a solution” that will allow Filipinos to fish again in their “natural” fishing grounds in the West Philippine Sea without Chinese interference.

Despite the increasing Chinese incursions in the West Philippine Sea, Marcos said in his speech before PMA alumni and top security officials of the government that his administration would continue to uphold the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in accordance with the Constitution and with international law.

“This country has seen heightened geopolitical tensions that do not conform to our ideals of peace and threaten the security and stability of the country, of the region, and of the world,” he said. But he added: “This country will not lose one inch of its territory.” g

Blanket of protection

Former Bayan Muna partylist representative Neri Colmenares on Saturday said that the “unequivocal defense” of Duterte by the House of Representatives only emphasized the need for an ICC investigation.

Colmenares, who serves as legal counsel for the victims, added that the resolution of former president and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo providing a “blanket protection” to Duterte “only points that there can be no fair, comprehensive, and objective inquiry into the thousands of deaths resulting from Duterte’s war on drugs in the Philippines.”

Arroyo has filed House Resolution 780 urging lawmakers to support Duterte.

“This reiterates that our government is unwilling and unable to investigate, and that the executive and legislative branches of government verily make justice inaccessible. In fact, it reminds us that there is no domestic investigation into acts and omissions of key officials, underway today, at all,” Colmenares added.

Colmenares noted that there is no trial or named accused before the ICC.

“The defense is suspiciously premature. The politicization of judicial processes, marked by an assiduous resistance to fact-finding, eerily harks back to Arroyo’s own time as a president when cases of extrajudicial killings, desaparecidos and torture also heavily occurred.

In choosing to ignore grave rights violations and abuses — acts incompatible with our very humanity — politicians enable and empower violators and abusers. This is how impunity perpetuates,” he said.

According to Colmenares, the resolution of the lower chamber is a mere posturing and will not be a hindrance to the ICC investigation.

“The resolution carries a mishmash of arguments that seem to claim that ‘the end justifies the means.’ In the course of its work, the ICC could also well find value in interrogating the basis of this resolution,” Colmenares stressed.

In May 2021, the ICC prosecutor at that time, Fatou Bensouda, requested the court’s authorization to launch a preliminary investigation into the extrajudicial killings conducted during Duterte’s war on drugs.

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC can investigate and prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression.

The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated in a 2020 report that at least 8,000 people were killed during the campaign on drugs implemented under Duterte.

In November 2021, the Philippine government requested the ICC to defer the investigation, saying that it had begun its own inquiry into the killings.

In June last year, the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested the resumption of the investigation, saying the Philippine government had not substantiated its request for deferral.

Last January 26, a pre-trial panel of the ICC authorized the prosecutor to resume its inquiry.

The Philippines withdrew its membership from the ICC in 2019 but the court ruled that the country remained under its jurisdiction.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on January 26 appealed to the ICC to let the Philippines carry out its own investigation and respect the country’s sovereignty and judicial systems. The DOJ also told the ICC that the country has a “working” and “organized” justice system compared to some African nations that the international court had investigated. Marcos expressed confidence in the Philippines’ police and judicial branch and that no external player is needed to resolve its issues.

“I do not see what (its) jurisdiction is. I feel that we have in our police and our judiciary a good system. We do not need assistance from any outside entity,” he said. g