The Archdiocese of Lingayen-Dagupan on Thursday, Oct. 26 said it acknowledged the dissents against the "transgression to the Philippine sovereignty" about the effects of the "war on drugs" which transpired during the Duterte administration.

This came after the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court sitting at The Hague requested ingress into the country to investigate the extrajudicial deaths from former President Duterte's tactics to eliminate the use of illegal drugs in the country.
With this, Archbishop of Lingayen-Dagupan Socrates Villegas said the Church supports the entry into the country of the International Criminal Court (ICC)---the body that investigates the "gravest" crimes concerning the international community.
"Allowing the investigators and factfinders in can and should be an act of sovereignty--a choice we, as a people, freely make for the sake of truth and to vindicate those who may have lost their lives, denied by processes of law that every democracy guarantees both to citizen and foreigner alike," said Villegas.
Villegas noted that Filipino nationhood should not be "so fragile" in hindering international authority to assess the willingness of Philippine prosecutors to make the people who were involved in "heinous crimes" accountable.
"If we have faith in ourselves and in our institutions, then we should not hesitate about allowing officials of the International Criminal Tribunal to see for themselves that we are able to bring the culpable before the Bar of Justice," Villegas added. (Lizst Torres Abello)