DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 12 April) – Former president Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday said the International Criminal Court (ICC) should not meddle in the “war on drugs” being waged by his son, Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte.
The elder Duterte was reacting to a statement by former Bayan Muna representative Neri Colmenares that the ICC must take a look at the declaration of a renewed “war on drugs” in the city.
Colmenares is the chief lawyer of the families of persons who were killed in the bloody “drug war” during Duterte’s time as president.
The mayor declared his own “drug war” during the installation of Col. Richard Bad-ang as the new director of the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) on March 22.
Three days later, the DCPO recorded seven deaths in anti-illegal drugs operations. But no more deaths linked to the “drug war” had been reported so far after eight police personnel were relieved of their duties.
Police Regional Office-11 regional director BGen Alden Delvo said it was his instruction to investigate these policemen as “seven deaths during police operations are unusual, but not impossible.”
“If they did the right thing of defending themselves, and they implemented the standard operating procedures properly then I will be with them. But if they violate human rights, they are supposed to be somewhere else,” Delvo said in a press conference Wednesday morning.
Speaking to reporters at the sidelines of his press conference at Grand Menseng Hotel on Thursday night, the former president told the ICC not to drag his son and his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, into its investigation on the “drug war” killings during his administration.
“Look, ICC, you cannot acquire over… my daughter or my son. You cannot acquire it, even in a million years. Puro papel lang kayo at salita (You’re all paper and words),” he said.
Duterte, who faces the possibility of being tried before the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity, said he is willing to be prosecuted in the Philippines.
“I am a Filipino, and I will die in the Philippines. If somebody would want to prosecute me, if there is existing evidence, they can file a case against me, and I will be glad to face the charges and if found guilty, I will go to Bilibid Prison,” Duterte said in mixed English and Cebuano.
“And if they want to execute me, dito sa Pilipinas (here in the Philippines), but never itong mga [expletive] kayong mga ICC na makialam sa buhay namin (you the ICC that are meddling in our lives),” he added.
During the Duterte patriarch’s watch, official statistics placed the number of “drug war” deaths at over 6,000.
But human rights groups said that up to 30,000 may have been killed by law enforcers as part of a State policy. They said these killings may constitute “crimes against humanity,” one of the crimes covered by the Rome Statute, the multilateral treaty that created the ICC.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. repeatedly said the government will not “lift a finger” to help the ICC in their probe in the country.
“Let me say this for the 100th time. I do not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines. I do not. I consider it as a threat to our sovereignty. The Philippine government will not lift a finger to help any investigation that the ICC conducts,” Marcos said. (Ian Carl Espinosa/MindaNews)
