The more the merrier: Lagman says pro-ICC probe measures should be tuned into a concurrent resolution 

Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman (Screenshot from Zoom)

Albay 1st district Rep. Edcel Lagman has floated the possibility of turning into a concurrent resolution the existing resolutions filed by several House members and one senator in seeking government cooperation for the International Criminal Court's (ICC) probe on the previous Duterte administration’s bloody war on illegal drugs. 

Lagman, a self-styled independent minority solon, said that doing so would amplify the voice of Congress in favoring the ICC investigation. 

Lagman is an author of such a measure, House Resolution (HR) No.1482. The two others filed in the House of Representatives were HR Nos. 1393 and 1482 filed by ACT-Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro and Manila 6th district Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr., respectively. 

"The Senate has a similar resolution filed by Senator [Risa] Hontiveros," the Bicolano said during a joint hearing Wednesday, Nov. 29 of the House Committees on Human Rights and on Justice. 

"And most probably later, the joint committees might consider transforming our resolution into a concurrent resolution, provided the Senate, through senator Hontiveros would also convert their resolution into a concurrent resolution," Lagman said. 

"So that this will be a combined expression of the sense of the Congress of the Philippines that the executive department must cooperate with ICC and its prosecutors," he continued. 

Lagman's measure is titled, a resolution urging the appropriate Philippine government departments and agencies to extend their full cooperation to the office of the prosecutors of the [ICC] with respect to its investigation of any alleged crime within the jurisdiction of the ICC, including but not limited to the crime against humanity of murder, committed in the Philippines in the context of the so-called 'war on drugs' campaign. 

During Wednesday's joint hearing, the House panels adopted the three resolutions and approved a move to consolidate them. 

Once the consolidated version is approved by the joint panels, it will be endorsed to the House plenary for the wider adoption of the legislative chamber.