FORMER President Rodrigo Duterte should not be afraid to face the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity committed during his six-year term if he has nothing to hide, administration lawmakers said yesterday.
Manila Rep. Ernesto Dionisio, Lanao del Norte Rep. Mohamad Khalid Dimaporo and La Union Rep. Francisco Paolo Ortega echoed the line of Duterte supporters who, in defending his war on drugs, had said that innocent civilians have nothing to fear if they were really innocent.
The three lawmakers, however, maintained that President Marcos Jr. was right in saying that the ICC has “no jurisdiction” over the Philippines following the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute in 2018.
“Personally, I, like all of us congressmen here, stand with the President that ICC really has no jurisdiction. But if you have nothing to hide — more or less — why will you be afraid when ICC comes in?” Dionisio said.
Dimaporo, chair of the House Committee on Muslim Affairs, said: “If there is nothing to hide, then why fear the ICC?”
Dimaporo also repeated the Marcos administration’s position that there is no need for ICC probers to come to the country and investigate alleged thousands of cases of extrajudicial killings because the country’s democratic institutions — like the police and the judiciary — are perfectly functioning.
“Our institutions are still functioning,” he stressed.
Ortega, for his part, said he understands why 59 percent of respondents in the latest OCTA survey supported an ICC probe.
“We stand with the decision of the President, but we also respect the survey. Perhaps people are seeing the irregularities, and these will really come out in surveys,” he said.
The House Joint Committee on Justice and on Human Rights last November adopted a resolution calling for the government to cooperate with the ICC’s investigation amid the ongoing word war between the leadership of the House of Representatives and Duterte, who has also accused the President of being a “drug addict.”
The joint panel adopted House Resolution No. 1477, which Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante filed with Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez (PL, 1-Rider), in consolidation with House Resolution Nos. 1393 filed by the militant Makabayan bloc and HR No. 1482 filed by Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman.
The panel approved the motion for the adoption of the resolution after lengthy discussions on whether the ICC has jurisdiction over the country since the ex-president unilaterally ordered the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute.
