Duterte maintains ICC has no jurisdiction in PH

FORMER President Rodrigo Duterte has maintained that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction in the Philippines, and that he would face complaints against him only before Philippine courts of law.

Duterte’s erstwhile spokesman, lawyer Harry Roque, dared the ICC to “do what you want.”

“You (ICC) will never have jurisdiction over his person and of course, we have always maintained that we will uphold Philippine sovereignty, that he will only face criminal prosecution before a domestic court,” Roque said in an interview with ANC.

Roque was reacting to a decision by the ICC to reopen an inquiry into Duterte’s bloody war on drugs.

Roque stressed that his former boss would face complaints against him, should there be any, but only before Philippine courts. During his watch, Duterte pulled the Philippines out of the Hague-based ICC in 2019, a year after the tribunal began a preliminary probe into the drug war in the Philippines.

The ICC called off its investigation two months later, saying it re-examine hundreds of death incidents involving suspected drug personalities in the hands of policemen, hitmen, and alleged vigilantes.

Official records would reveal that a total of 6,181 people were killed in Duterte’s “war on drugs” but human rights group claimed that the figure could run up to as many as 30,000.