ICC probe of Duterte war on drugs pushed after admission of killings

OPPOSITION congressmen on Wednesday urged the government of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. to cooperate with the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) investigation of ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s war on drugs after he admitted using secret funds to carry out killings in Davao City when he was the mayor.

In a resolution, the lawmakers urged the state to allow the entry of ICC investigators into the Philippines.

“With former President Rodrigo Duterte’s televised admission of ordering extrajudicial killings and financing them with his confidential and intelligence funds, it is imperative that we allow the ICC to investigate his crimes,” Party-list Rep. France L. Castro, one of the resolution authors, said in a statement.

House Resolution 1393 cited an SMNI TV program where the ex-President “publicly admitted that he used intelligence funds to conduct extrajudicial killings on his constituents in Davao City when he was still its mayor.”

“I had them all killed, that’s why Davao is like that,” Mr. Duterte said in Filipino. “That’s the truth.”

“This admission by Duterte himself serves as strong evidence against him,” Party-list Rep. Arlene D. Brosas said in a separate statement.

The ICC Appeals Chamber on July 18 rejected a Philippine government plea in a 3-2 vote to suspend the probe, saying the ICC-Pre-Trial Chamber had correctly allowed its prosecutor to do its mandate.

The Department of Justice in July said the ICC rejection of its appeal was based on a “flawed interpretation of its own jurisdiction,” adding that it had failed to acknowledge that the Philippines has a functioning legal system.

Mr. Duterte ordered Philippine withdrawal from the ICC in 2018 after ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced the opening of a preliminary investigation into deaths linked to police anti-drug operations.

“It does not mean that the international court lost jurisdiction on the case filed before such withdrawal,” according to the House of Representatives resolution.

The chamber was also set to probe vigilante-style killings in Davao City during Mr. Duterte’s vice mayoral and mayoral terms.

The government said at least 6,117 suspected drug dealers were killed in police operations under Mr. Duterte. Human rights groups say as many as 30,000 suspects died.

His successor, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. said his administration would not cooperate with the ICC’s drug war probe.

“We continue to defend the sovereignty of the Philippines and continue to question the jurisdiction of the ICC in their investigations here in the Philippines,” Mr. Marcos said in July.

At least 342 drug-related killings happened under Mr. Marcos’ first year as president, according to the Dahas project under the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center.

Asian Parliamentarians for Human Rights this week sounded the alarm over Mr. Duterte’s remarks against Ms. Castro after the House scrapped his daughter Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio’s 2024 confidential funds.

The group said it stood in solidarity with Ms. Castro and with all other parliamentarians in the Philippines who have been the target of unwarranted threats and harassment simply for carrying out their mandates.

In an SMNI interview last week, Mr. Duterte said he had told his daughter to say that she would use her proposed intelligence funds to kill Maoists in Congress including Ms. Castro, a party-list lawmaker.

“Your first target in your intelligence fund is France, the communists, whom you want to kill,” he said. “Tell her now.”

The House last week stripped several agencies including the Office of the Vice President and Education department, which Ms. Duterte-Carpio heads, of their confidential funds, transferring P1.23 billion worth of these budgets to security agencies amid worsening tensions with China.

In response, Mr. Duterte described the chamber as the “most rotten institution” in the country. — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz