Drug war victims’ kin tell ICC: Don’t let...

the court since 2016 accusing then President Rodrigo Duterte and other officials of crimes against humanity by authorizing thousands of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the bloody campaign against illegal drugs.

‘Trauma, loss of income’

They argued that the Philippine appeal to suspend the ICC investigation would have an “immediate and direct effect on the personal interests of the applicants as they have not been able to obtain justice and remedies for the crimes committed against their family members.”

Some of the applicants, they said, “experienced torture at the hands of the police in relation to the drug war.”

“As a result of the killings of their family members or the torture they were subjected to, the applicants have suffered physical, psychological and socio- economic harm, including physical pain, injuries, anxiety, loss of sleep, trauma, feeling of fear, depression, loss of income, and economic hardship,” they said.

Obscured death toll

Government data put the death toll of the drug war during Duterte’s term from July 2016 to May 2022 at 6,252 individuals, but human rights groups contend that the actual number could be three times that, as a consequence of sloppy investigation, and in a number of documented cases, falsified death certificates.

The Philippine government is expected to file its appeal brief before the March deadline, after the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I, in a Jan. 26 decision, authorized ICC prosecutor Karim Khan to proceed with the preliminary investigation.

In a Feb. 3 petition, the government, through Solicitor

General Menardo Guevarra, who served as Duterte’s justice secretary, sought the reversal of the ICC chamber’s decision.

Under ICC processes, the government is to submit its arguments in a more detailed appeal brief, with the prosecutor given the chance to respond afterward.

The Marcos administration has supported its predecessor in the ICC case, arguing that the court has no jurisdiction over the Philippines after the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute took effect in 2019, and that the government is already investigating the same drug warrelated crimes under scrutiny.

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that withdrawing from the Rome Statute “does not discharge a state party from the obligations it has incurred as a member.”

Back in Geneva

On Wednesday, March 1,

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla sought to convince the international community that the Philippines is pursuing human rights reforms, as he addressed the 52nd Regular Session of the United Nations (UN) Human