Ex-president’s supporters, critics keep eye on ICC hearing
Critics and supporters of former President Rodrigo Duterte held their respective protest rallies in Manila, hours before the confirmation of charges hearing at the International Criminal Court (ICC) which began on Monday at 10 a.m. in The Hague (5:30 p.m. Philippine time) where the former Philippine leader is detained at the ICC for crimes against humanity of murder.
The Free Our Unionists Network (Foun) and other labor groups demonstrated outside the Department of Justice, together with different nongovernmental organizations, as they called for “accountability” in Duterte’s drug war, which has claimed the lives of as many as 30,000 Filipinos, according to human rights groups.
“Duterte has committed many sins. He owes the Filipino people and other sectors of society blood,” said Foun spokesperson Mags Camoral.
Human rights groups Karapatan and Bayan staged their protest at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
“Duterte’s defense team has been filing motion after motion, all designed to delay and derail the confirmation of charges and the trial itself. These motions betray the Duterte camp’s fears that their client’s acts are indefensible, and their best bet hinges on such dilatory tactics and harping on unfounded claims that Duterte is unfit to stand trial,” Karapatan said in a statement.
The protesters clamored for accountability as well in the still unresolved corruption scandal over the government’s flood control projects, while labor groups demanded the immediate release and dismissal of charges against detained labor activists.
Petition for Du30 release
Meanwhile, Duterte’s supporters said they filed a petition in the Supreme Court to have the former president returned home.
Park Alamada Pangawilan of the pro-Duterte group Hakbang ng Maisug said the petition was signed by more than 100,000 people, adding that more petitions calling for the former president’s return would be filed in the coming days.
“This is our call, for the government and the Supreme Court to push the Marcos administration to bring home PRRD (President Rodrigo R. Duterte) because we have laws in the Philippines,” Pangawilan said.
Three of Duterte’s children had already filed habeas corpus petitions before the Supreme Court following his March 11 arrest last year.
By November, the high court directed Veronica Duterte, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte and Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte to answer if their consolidated petitions had been rendered moot by the former president’s transfer to the ICC.
The Duterte siblings then filed a memorandum stating that judicial intervention remained necessary to uphold the Constitution against a “void ab initio” (void from the beginning) arrest and summary extradition.
‘War against the poor’
The Office of the Solicitor General, for its part, filed its memorandum on Jan. 5 in response to the Duterte children’s memorandum, asking the high court to dismiss their petitions for “utter lack of merit” because the former president was no longer in Philippine territory and therefore the writ of habeas corpus cannot be enforced extraterritorially.
For Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of the Diocese of San Carlos in Negros Occidental, Duterte’s case should be regarded as “a moment of moral reckoning.”
“Families have the right to seek accountability through lawful mechanisms, both national and international. Truth must prevail. Justice must not be delayed,” Alminaza said in his Sunday homily, during a Mass held in Malate Church for families of victims of Duterte’s antidrug campaign.
The drug war, in hindsight, was “strongman rule disguised as public safety,” a political strategy that “converted fear into applause” and essentially, “a war against the poor,” said the prelate, who is also chair of the Episcopal Commission on Social Action and Justice of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.
On Monday, lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives filed House Resolution No. 809, seeking the country’s return to the ICC.
“Reengagement with the ICC would strengthen the country’s global reputation as a rights-respecting democracy, restore international confidence in the Philippines’ legal system and bolster partnerships rooted in justice, good governance and the rule of law,” ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Rep. Sarah Elago and Kabataan Rep. Renee Co said in the resolution.
The Philippines under then President Duterte withdrew from the Rome Statute, the 2002 treaty establishing the ICC, in 2018. This took effect a year later in March 2019, in accordance with that statute.
Senate measure slammed
Before the Makabayan bloc’s resolution, Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima had chided the Senate for adopting a resolution seeking Duterte’s house arrest instead of discussing proposals for the country’s return to the ICC’s fold.
“They should have discussed and voted on proposals to bring back the Philippines as an ICC member. But we are still backwards,” De Lima said in October last year, referring to Senate Resolution No. 144 signed by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri and Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano.
Bayan said the Senate resolution is a mere “display of political opportunism.” —WITH REPORTS FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH, ZACARIAN SARAO AND ANDREA ROSE GREGORIO
