The Philippine government on Thursday, Sept. 8, formally asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to deny the proposal to resume investigation on alleged crimes committed during the anti-illegal drugs war of the administration of former President Rodrigo R. Duterte.
“The ICC has no jurisdiction over the situation in the Philippines,” the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), the government’s law firm, told the ICC.
“The alleged murder incidents that happened during the relevant period do not constitute ‘crimes against humanity’ considering that said incidents do not qualify as an ‘attack’ against the civilian population,” the OSG said.
It pointed out that “the said occurrences were not in furtherance of a state or organizational policy to commit such attack.”
It stressed that the Philippine situation is inadmissible under Article 17 of the Rome Statute since “the complaints filed before the ICC are already being investigated and prosecuted by the proper agencies and that the State is neither unwilling nor unable to carry out these domestic proceedings.”
“Under the complementarity principle, state-level investigative proceedings should take precedence, thereby rendering the resumption of the OTP’s investigation into the Philippine situation unwarranted,” the OSG said.
The OSG’s stand in behalf of the Philippine government was contained in the Observation on the Request of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) to Resume Investigation in the Republic of the Philippines. The proposal on the probe was submitted before the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber (PTC).
The OSG’s Observation, which was submitted through the Philippine Embassy at The Hague, Netherlands, was in response to the June 24 proposal of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan before the PTC to resume investigation on the complaints claiming of crimes against humanity were committed under the Duterte administration. The PTC earlier gave the Philippine government until Sept. 8 to respond.
The OSG also submitted to the PTC the progress of the investigations conducted by the Philippine government.
“In its submission, the Philippine Government also presented information showing that inquiries were made into the drug-related killings in the Davao region during the period 2-11-2016, and that crimes other than murder in connection with the war on drugs were also investigated,” it said.
The Philippines had been a signatory of the Rome Statute which created the ICC but in 2019, the country withdrew from the treaty upon the orders of Duterte.
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. had also said the Philippines has no intention of rejoining the ICC.
The OSG is now headed by then Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra.