Drug war: ‘Widespread and systematic attack vs. the civilian population’ (1)
On March 7, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant of arrest for former President Rodrigo Duterte, who arrived with his family from Hong Kong on Tuesday, March 11.
The ICC ordered Duterte’s arrest through the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), and the Philippines obliged since it is a member of this intergovernmental organization that facilitates police cooperation among 196 member countries. Interpol Manila received the warrant hours before dawn on Tuesday, which empowered the Prosecutor General of the Department of Justice to make the arrest.
What exactly was the basis for the arrest of the former strongman?
In the warrant (https://tinyurl.com/4b7wfy79), ICC’s “Chamber 1” took into account the totality of the information before it and “finds reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Duterte is individually responsible for the crime against humanity of murder … as an indirect co-perpetrator … committed during the Relevant Period.” The relevant period ran from Nov. 1, 2011, to March 16, 2019, when the Philippines was still a state party to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC. The ICC investigates and tries citizens of member countries “charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community” such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. (https://www.icc-cpi.int/)
The 15-page ICC warrant took pains to explain its jurisdiction over Duterte because it was the latter, while the president, who ordered the Philippine withdrawal from the Rome Statute in 2018, an official act, which took effect on March 17, 2019. However, the ICC continues to have authority over the alleged crimes against humanity that Duterte committed in the Philippines before the withdrawal.
This “temporal jurisdiction” and “mandate” are being exercised by the ICC because of the authority vested in the court by the Rome Statute, “an international treaty to which the Philippines was a party at the time of the alleged crimes for which the investigation was authorized,” the warrant explained.
State-sanctioned killings
To ascertain if there are reasonable grounds to believe that Duterte committed a crime under the jurisdiction of the ICC, the chamber cited the role of the Davao Death Squad (DDS) and Philippine law enforcement personnel in targeting “a very large number of persons allegedly involved in criminal activities, in particular, drug-related ones.” Besides multiple acts against civilians, these “violent acts were initially committed by the DDS and subsequently by different governmental authorities and organs, pursuant to a policy of aiming at putting an end to the criminality in the Philippines by all means, including killings of alleged criminals.”
What was Duterte’s alleged involvement in these killings?
In the ICC’s eyes, he was the “head of the DDS,” to wit: “The Chamber is satisfied that an ‘attack’ directed at a civilian population pursuant to an organizational policy during the period Mr. Duterte had been the head of the DDS and a State policy during the period he had been the President of the Philippines, within the meaning of Article 7(1) of the Statute, took place.”
Furthermore, the chamber established reasonable grounds to believe that “this attack was both widespread and systematic.” It took place over a period of several years, and thousands of people appear to have been killed. The Philippine government admitted that over 6,000 individuals were killed during Duterte’s bloody war on drugs alone, or from 2016 to 2022, although human rights groups claim that the figure could be higher.
In terms of the profile of victims and the nature of their deaths, the chamber discovered that the killings shared common features, such as the location and modus operandi, including the method of killing, the profiles of victims, and the profiles of perpetrators.
It was alleged by the ICC prosecution that some acts amounting to crimes against humanity of torture and rape “‘were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population’ and ‘pursuant to a State policy to attack alleged criminals,’” but the chamber rejected these claims since they were “insufficiently shown.”
Thus, allegations of torture and rape were not included as a basis for the warrant, except for the alleged murders. “Considering Mr. Duterte’s role and position during the Relevant Period as the Mayor of Davao City and the President of the Philippines and the fact that he was the head of the DDS, the Chamber finds that he necessarily knew about the operations and their scope,” the warrant stated.
The warrant then proceeded to identify the scope of the “widespread and systematic attack” against criminals, especially drug suspects: at least 19 alleged drug pushers and thieves killed by DDS in Davao City and at least 24 alleged drug pushers and thieves killed by Philippine police sometimes with the assistance of civilians.
(More on the “Lambada Boys” that later evolved into DDS in my next column).
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For comments: mubac@inquirer.com.ph
