(We yield this space to the statement of the Child Rights Network due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
THE ANNOUNCEMENT of outgoing International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that she has formally requested an investigation into crimes against humanity perpetrated under the anti-illegal drugs campaign of the current administration is most welcome.
We note that in June 2020, it was reported that at least 122 children have been killed in the Philippines’ anti-illegal drugs campaign, according to a report published by the Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center (CLRDC). CLRDC is a member of CRN.
The repercussions of the anti-illegal drugs campaign go beyond the death count. With thousands killed under Oplan Tokhang and related operations, this bloody campaign has resulted into a generation of orphans and traumatized children, a generation robbed of loving parents and kin, a generation who will forever remember the brutal manner of death their parents or guardians went through.
We continue to seek justice for all children who have become cannon fodder under the violent anti-illegal drugs campaign. The young lives that were taken have names, families, hopes, and dreams. With ICC coming into play, we earnestly hope that these young victims would no longer remain as abstract statistics and that Filipino children’s deaths will finally be given the justice they long deserved.
To date, 17-year-old Kian delos Santos’ story remains the sole case involving children under the administration’s anti-illegal drugs campaign that has already been resolved by a court, with the Caloocan Regional Trial Court Branch 125 handing a guilty verdict against the three policemen involved in the operation in 2018. May the impending ICC probe prove to be a step in the right direction that would guide us to a future where no more Kians are robbed of their future.
We call on the Philippine government not to set aside the ICC prosecutor’s findings, without even looking at the worrying findings contained in the ICC prosecutor’s report. Instead, we call on the government to fully cooperate in the upcoming investigation. We remind our state officials that even if the Philippines has already withdrawn from the Rome Statute, the nation remains a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and thus, the government has a legal and moral obligation to promote, protect and fulfill the human rights of every child. Cooperating with an investigation where children’s rights are involved is an integral part of that obligation.
