DoJ to review proposed charges vs Duterte

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Thursday said the Department of Justice (DoJ) needs to review a recommendation by a House panel to file charges of crimes against humanity against former President Rodrigo R. Duterte and his allies for rights violations in the previous administration’s war on drugs.

Mr. Marcos said he was “aware” of the House Quad Committee’s recommendations, and that it is the DoJ that will have to determine the next steps.

“The DoJ has to make that assessment,” he told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Pasay City. 

“The DoJ will look at it and see if there are — if it is time to file cases, what cases to file, how to produce the evidence, and we will need to actually build the case up,” he added.

He said the DoJ needs to assess the committee’s recommendation thoroughly and see if it is going in the right direction.

The recommendations followed the conclusion of the committee’s investigation into deaths linked to Mr. Duterte’s anti-drug campaign and crimes related to Philippine offshore gaming operations.

The Justice department had earlier created a task force to investigate alleged extrajudicial killings in Mr. Duterte’s drug war.

The government estimates that at least 6,117 people were killed in Mr. Duterte’s drug war between July 1, 2016, and May 31, 2022, but human rights groups say the death toll could be as high as 30,000.

The International Criminal Court’s probe of Mr. Duterte’s drug war covers crimes committed in Davao City from November 2011 to June 2016 when Mr. Duterte sat as its mayor, as well as cases during his presidency up until March 16, 2019, the day before the Philippines officially withdrew from the court’s Rome Statute.

“When they do an oversight hearing, they have findings that they will forward to the DoJ with their own recommendations as to how to handle the findings in the hearings,” Mr. Marcos said in mixed English and Filipino.

In recommending the filing of charges against Mr. Duterte and others, the committee cited Republic Act 9851, known as the Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide, and Other Crimes Against Humanity.

Quad Committee chair and Surigao del Norte Rep. Robert Ace S. Barbers noted in the report that Mr. Duterte himself admitted key elements of his administration’s drug war, including the so-called Davao Death Squad.

The lawmaker also cited the Davao template of rewarding police officers involved in extrajudicial deaths.

Also named in the report were Christopher Lawrence Go, Mr. Duterte’s former aide who is now a senator, and then-police chief and now senator Ronald Dela Rosa. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza