The Dutertes are disgustingly portraying themselves as victims after the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte pursuant to the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s issuance of an arrest warrant against him for crimes against humanity.
“The Dutertes may whine all they want, but they will never look credible playing the victim card in the face of the pain and anguish suffered by the families of tens of thousands of drug suspects and the hundreds of activists extrajudicially killed by State-sanctioned death squads,” said Karapatan deputy secretary general Maria Sol Taule.
Duterte’s lawyers have asked the Supreme Court for a restraining order and are questioning the legality of his arrest, in a vain attempt to stop Duterte’s transfer to the ICC’s jurisdiction in The Hague, The Netherlands. As expected, Duterte’s lawyers cited the ICC’s alleged lack of jurisdiction over the Philippines, invoking the country’s withdrawal in 2019 from the Rome Statute which created the ICC.
The matter of jurisdiction has, however, been settled by the Supreme Court in a ruling in 2021, which states that “Withdrawing from the Rome Statute does not discharge a state party from the obligations it has incurred as a member.” The crimes for which Duterte has been charged in the ICC occurred from 2011, when the country ratified the Rome Statute, up to March 2019, when Duterte’s withdrawal from the statute took effect. It covers the time when Duterte was mayor of Davao City up till the first two years and nine months of his term as president.
“Some estimates put at more than 12,000 the number of extrajudicial killings in the first 14 months alone of Duterte’s drug war,” said Taule. “Every single one of these deaths represents a cry for justice.”
“Rodrigo Duterte is also accountable for the extrajudicial killings of 422 political activists and the frustrated extrajudicial killing of 544 others,” added Taule.
Despite all these killings, however,” said Taule, “the justice system in the Philippines has failed to exact accountability—a failing that extends to the Marcos Jr. regime which perpetrates extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations under repressive Duterte-era policies that it continues to implement, and his refusal to rejoin the ICC.”
“This issue goes beyond Duterte,” said Taule. “More than anything, this issue is about the climate of impunity that has shielded big-time criminals in the country,” she stressed.
“Powerful people’s movements made possible the arrests of Joseph Estrada in 2001 for corruption and Gloria Arroyo in 2012 to corruption and electoral fraud,” she pointed out. “But Estrada ended up being pardoned by Arroyo and Arroyo managed to be acquitted of, and escape accountability for her crimes,” said Taule. “Our bankrupt political system has always allowed presidents guilty of high crimes to walk free.”
“Our people must unleash their power and maintain their utmost vigilance to prevent the same travesty of justice in the case of Rodrigo Duterte,” concluded Taule.