HOUSE Resolution 1393 calls on the BBM administration to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in its ongoing investigation into the thousands of deaths that resulted from Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Rep. France Castro, the complainant in a case for grave threats against Duterte, announced last week that the House of Representatives will likely deliberate on the resolution in the next few weeks.
This announcement comes on the heels of a shakeup in the House leadership that saw former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo losing her position as deputy speaker
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The former President’s party-mates at the House have steadily dwindled halfway into their terms of office.
Senior Deputy Speaker Aurelio Gonzales announced his own resignation from PDP-Laban when the House plenary was discussing a resolution that affirmed support for Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Gonzales reacted to Duterte’s accusation that the House is a corrupt institution after it hijacked confidential funds intended for his daughter’s Office of the Vice President and Department of Education.
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PDP-Laban had 65 members at the start of the 19th Congress. They are now reduced to 15, with Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel predicting that the figure will further shrink to five – lower than the Liberal Party’s seven.
Pimentel, PDP-Laban vice chair for Mindanao, admitted he is inclined to defect to another party because “members of Congress should also be aligned or attuned with the direction of the leadership.”
The new parties of choice are pro-administration Lakas-CMD and Partido Federal, expectedly because politicians are beefing up their arsenal for the upcoming 2025 midterm elections.
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In the meantime, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla continues to shield the Philippine government from the jurisdiction of the ICC.
To recall, the Supreme Court rendered a decision in March 2021 dismissing petitions to overturn the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC because they had been rendered moot and academic by Duterte’s implementation of the withdrawal.
Nonetheless, the high Court mentioned that the Philippines is obligated to cooperate with the ICC on investigations respecting events that transpired while it was still a party to the Rome Statute.
Remulla said that this pronouncement is obiter dictum (incidental statement, as opposed to the ratio decidendi – or the reason for the decision), and therefore not binding on the current government.
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Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra has expressed similar sentiments. He said that the ICC should not expect “direct and actual cooperation from the government because the Republic of the Philippines has maintained its question of exercise of jurisdiction by the ICC.”
This is despite the ICC’s earlier denial of the appeal filed by the Philippines that sought to stop the ICC prosecutor from investigating Duterte’s war on drugs.
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It is interesting to see how the executive department will respond to Congress passing a resolution urging the President to cooperate with the ICC.
Indeed, will that resolution see the light of day without the tacit approval of the President?
GMA’s demotion is perhaps the handwriting on the wall./PN
