Palace: ‘Suspect’ Du30 getting fair ICC trial
Malacañang on Saturday said the wheels of justice finally started to turn for the thousands of drug war victims and their relatives as former President Rodrigo Duterte faced the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the first time.
“Witnessing the first appearance attended by Duterte before the ICC, everybody could see how justice starts to roll down,” Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said in a statement on Saturday.
According to her, the ICC’s swift decision to reject the two requests of Duterte’s legal team, including the attempt to move next week the disgraced former leader’s historic appearance before the international tribunal, only showed that he was accorded due process and that his rights as an accused were respected by the Philippine government.
“This is what we call fair trial,” said Castro, who is also a lawyer.
“Therefore, it reveals further that Duterte was indeed afforded his fundamental rights as a suspect of crimes against humanity, specifically murder, contrary to (the) Duterte camp’s statements,” she added.
‘Indictment’ of PH justice
For former Senate President Franklin Drilon, the decision of the relatives of some of the victims of Duterte’s brutal antinarcotics crackdown to pursue justice for their slain loved ones in the ICC was an “indictment” of the country’s judicial process.
“It means that the victims ran to the ICC because they don’t believe that the system of justice here is fair,” Drilon told radio dwIZ’s “Usapang Senado” program on Saturday.
“The insistence (of the complainants) to file the cases against (Duterte) in the ICC is an indictment of our Philippine justice system,” said the veteran lawmaker, who had served as justice secretary twice.
Drilon also said Senator Ronald “Bato” Rosa, Duterte’s first national police chief, won’t be able to seek refuge in the Senate should Malacañang decide to hand him over to the ICC.
He noted that senators may only be protected from arrest when Congress is in session and if they are facing complaints for less serious crimes.
Can’t prevent arrest
In Dela Rosa’s case, Drilon pointed out that the “tokhang” implementer-turned-lawmaker has been charged with allegedly committing crimes against humanity and that Congress is still on legislative break.
Known as one of Duterte’s closest security aides and allies, Dela Rosa was the acknowledged architect of “Oplan Tokhang,” the blueprint of the previous administration’s take-no-prisoners antidrug strategy.
Drilon, who headed the chamber thrice, said Senate President Francis Escudero has “no power” to prevent Dela Rosa’s arrest if Malacanang grants the ICC’s request to arrest the senator through the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
“This is an executive function. It’s the job of the President, not the Senate,” he said. “If the President allows the serving of the warrant (against Dela Rosa), Escudero cannot do anything.”
The former lawmaker also pointed out that the 1987 Constitution states that a legislator cannot be arrested while the Congress is in session.
Such privilege, he added, only covered minor offenses.
Must be in session
Theodore Te, a former spokesperson of the Supreme Court and a law professor at the University of the Philippines, said the constitutional shield against an arrest of a lawmaker requires that Congress must be in session and the penalty of the alleged offense should not be punishable by imprisonment of not more than six years.
But this provision “may not be squarely applicable” to Dela Rosa, he said during a forum at UP on the ICC process.
“You’re talking about an ICC warrant. There’s no predetermined penalty because it only happens once there is a sentencing,” he said.
The human rights group Karapatan said Dela Rosa, his successors in the Philippine National Police Oscar Albayalde and Debold Sinas, the notorious “Davao Boys” led by Police Col. Lito Patay and other police officers who conspired with Duterte in implementing the war on drugs should also be charged as “co-perpetrators” in the charge of crimes against humanity.
Seeking protection
Despite the absence of an actual warrant against him, Dela Rosa joined Duterte last week in a petition for certiorari and prohibition in the Supreme Court to compel the Philippine government to stop cooperating with the ICC.
“One by one, they are seeking state protection from the looming ICC warrants for their arrest,” Karapatan said on Saturday. “One by one, they will discover that they have become pariahs in this country and elsewhere.”
On Dela Rosa’s as national police chief, at least 1,800 drug-related killings were recorded, according to a monitoring of UP Third World Studies.
Albayalde’s term was marked with around 1,100 drug war killings. There were more than 344 killings under Sinas from 2020 to 2021.
Patay, who headed the Batasan Police Station 6 in Quezon City, made it the deadliest police station in the country from 2016 to 2017.
Supposedly a part of the “Davao Boys,” a group of police officers that were sent to Metro Manila to intensify the campaign against illegal drugs, Patay was said to have led the “Bloody Sunday” operations that targeted Red-tagged activists and members of indigenous groups. —WITH A REPORT FROM KATHLEEN DE VILLA
