Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero said it is up to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to decide whether the Philippines will rejoin the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Escudero made the remark following calls of various groups for Marcos to rejoin the ICC in order to reverse former president Rodrigo Duterte’s move to unilaterally withdraw from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, in March 17, 2018. 

The Senate leader noted that while many argued that since the Senate had a role in the ratification of the treaty and should also have had a role in the country’s withdrawal from it, the Supreme Court’s decision had been clear. 

“The Supreme Court itself said that the Senate has no say (on the matter) because the chief architect of foreign policy is the President,” Escudero told reporters in a press briefing on Monday, March 17. 

“So our return (to the ICC), and that is also my response, would be the decision of the court regarding our decision to withdraw. Returning to the ICC fold would be the President’s decision,” he stressed. 

As such, should President Marcos makes a decision to return to the ICC, he should submit the necessary documents again to the Senate for its concurrence in the ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC. 

“We’ll start all over again, they will submit it (the documents) to us, then we will ratify it,” Escudero said. 

Critics have said Duterte’s decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute was an attempt to escape accountability in the face of the ICC’s investigation into his administration’s brutal war on illegal drugs which resulted into the mass killings of drug suspects. 

Government data then showed that the death toll during the war on drugs was at 6,000 but ICC prosecutors and human rights groups estimated it to be between 12,000 and 30,000 from 2016 to 2019.