By ADRIAN STEWART CO
MANILA – The government is now open to talk with the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is investigating the bloody “war on drugs” of the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte.
Department of Justice (DOJ) secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said in a recent interview with Reuters that there are certain areas that the country can cooperate with the ICC.
We will talk to them soon in a very well-defined manner, in the spirit of comity. Some people are trying to bridge the divide to bring us together, so we can sit at one table,” Remulla said. “There are certain areas we can cooperate.”
Remulla said cooperation with an international tribunal remains permissible under Philippine law, adding ICC representatives “have been going in and out of the country without us raising anything.”
“I know that, as anecdotally from people I know from the human rights community, they’ve been in contact here,” Remulla said. “Lines have to be drawn properly.”
The Justice Secretary’s remarks suggest a marked shift from the government’s previous hardline stance against the ICC, which it had insisted has no jurisdiction to investigate.
Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s founding treaty in 2019, when it started looking into allegations of systematic extrajudicial killings, and the Philippines has until recently refused to cooperate with the ICC investigation, which it announced in 2023.
Meanwhile, Duterte’s former chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo stated that Remulla should resign as he going against the stand of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. regarding ICC.
“The alter egos of the President should resign from their positions if they are not comfortable with — or are in opposition to — the pronouncements of the President,” Panelo said.
“The DOJ Secretary, in saying that there are certain areas that the PH can cooperate with the ICC concerning the drug war, is undermining the official position of PBBM,” he added. “They are an embarrassment to the President.”
According to police, 6,200 suspects were killed during anti-drug operations that they say ended in shootouts. But activists say the real toll of the crackdown was far greater./PN
