Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has denounced the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) call for a probe into his bloody drug war, terming it “legally erroneous and politically motivated.” To this end, Malacañang Palace, the Presidential office, released a statement on Tuesday stating: “The President will not cooperate until the end of his term on June 30, 2022. We do not know what the policy will be after 2022. That will be answered by whoever is the next President of the Philippines.”
According to The Straits Times, Duterte’s spokesperson, Harry Roque, said at a press briefing that the President’s crackdown on the illegal drug trade was not a “widespread, systematic attack against civilians.” “We do not need foreigners to investigate killings in the drug war because the legal system is working in the Philippines. [...] Did you target civilians? Did you kill them willingly, knowing they were civilians? Obviously, the answer is no,” the spokesperson said. Roque also argued that “extrajudicial killings” resulting from the drug war cannot be termed “crimes against humanity.”
The comments come after the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced that she had sought authorisation from the permanent international war crimes court to open an investigation probing Duterte’s alleged humanitarian crimes during his war on drugs. Thousands have been killed for suspected involvement in drugs trade since Duterte took office in 2016. “I have determined that there is a reasonable basis to believe that the crime against humanity of murder has been committed… in context of the government of Philippines ‘war on drugs’ campaign,” Bensouda said in a statement.
In a 57-page report submitted to ICC judges, Bensouda claimed that between July 1, 2016, to March 16, 2019, the Philippines’ security forces and state-sanctioned “vigilantes” killed between 12,000 and 30,000 people suspected of being involved in the drug trade. “State officials at the highest levels of government also spoke publicly and repeatedly in support of extrajudicial killings and created a culture of impunity for those who committed them,” the chief prosecutor added. She requested that the investigation include allegations of “torture and other inhumane acts” dating back to 2011, when the current president was the mayor of Davao City.
While the statement by Bensouda, whose nine-year term as the chief prosecutor of the ICC ended this week, has instigated dismissive responses from Manila, it was welcomed by families of drug war victims. Human rights groups have also described the probe as a landmark step towards justice. On Monday, CNN quoted Amnesty International’s Secretary-General Agnès Callamard as describing the probe as a “much-awaited step in putting murderous incitement by President Duterte and his administration to an end.” Callamard added that the announcement was “a moment of hope for thousands of families in the Philippines who are grieving those lost to the government’s so-called ‘war on drugs’.”
Duterte has refused to cooperate with ICC probes in the past and has previously also instructed the country’s police forces to do so as well, and it appears that this policy is set to continue.