Philippines to respect ex-president Duterte’s decision to participate in ICC probe

MANILA, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) — The Philippines will not intervene should former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte surrender to the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigating the former leader’s war on drugs, the country’s Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said Wednesday.
“If the former president desires to surrender himself to the jurisdiction of the ICC, the government will neither object to it nor move to block the fulfillment of his desire,” Bersamin said in a statement.
“But if the ICC refers the process to the Interpol, which may then transmit a red notice to the Philippine authorities, the government will feel obliged to consider the red notice as a request to be honored, in which case the domestic law enforcement agencies shall be bound to accord full cooperation to the Interpol pursuant to established protocols,” he added.
Bersamin issued the statement a few hours after Duterte told a congressional inquiry on Wednesday that the ICC should “hurry up” with its probe into his administration’s anti-drug operations.
“I’m asking the ICC to hurry up, and if possible, they can come here and start the investigation tomorrow,” Duterte, 79, said at a congressional hearing.
“If I am found guilty, I will go to prison,” Duterte said, adding that he assumed full responsibility for the actions taken by the Philippine police and other law enforcement agencies when he was president from 2016 to 2022.
“I assume full responsibility for whatever happened in the actions taken by law enforcement agencies of this country … to stop the serious problem of drugs affecting our people,” Duterte said.
Bersamin’s statement is a turnaround of the Philippine government’s earlier position that Manila will not participate in the ICC’s decision to proceed with the investigation into the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
In November 2021, the ICC stopped its probe into the war on drugs at the request of the Duterte administration, while in January 2023, the court’s pre-trial chamber authorized the resumption of the investigation.
In February 2023, the current Marcos administration appealed to suspend the ruling and reverse the decision, insisting that the international court has no jurisdiction over the country.
In March 2018, then-President Duterte formally notified the United Nations secretary-general that the Philippines was withdrawing from the ICC’s Rome Statute. By the ICC treaty, the withdrawal took effect one year later.
But the court said that it has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the country, saying the Philippines was still a state party to the Rome Statute during its war on drugs. ■