PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday played down a complaint filed before the International Criminal Court accusing him of committing crimes against humanity.
“Let him be. Nobody can stop him from filing,” Duterte said of the lawyer who filed the case.
“If I go to prison, so be it,” Duterte said.
Duterte said he was given a copy of the complaint filed by lawyer Jude Sabio, the legal counsel of confessed hitman Edgar Matobato, who said the President started the Davao Death Squad when he was still a mayor of the city.
In a letter to the ICC, Sabio accused Duterte and 11 government and police officials of committing crimes against humanity for the spate of deaths under the administration’s drug war.
The complaint cited testimonies from Matobato, another self-confessed DDS assassin Arthur Lascañas, and various reports from human rights groups and media organizations.
Matobato and Lascañas earlier tagged the President in DDS murders, reportedly carried out during his years as Davao City mayor.
Duterte has given varying answers to the existence of the death squad, but the two self-confessed hitmen have maintained that the long-time city chief ordered killings of petty criminals, drug dealers, and even political enemies.
Sabio said Duterte had “repeatedly, unchangingly and continuously” committed crimes against humanity, and that killing drug suspects and other criminals has become “best practice” under his administration’s war on drugs.
More than 7,000 have died in Duterte’s fierce anti-drug campaign, but the administration has maintained that less than half have been killed in legitimate police operations.
Reuters has placed the death toll at 9,000.
The Palace had earlier said the ICC case would not prosper. Duterte’s allies in Congress, as well as top government lawyer Jose Calida, also share the same position.
The complaint is only a possible first step in what could be a long process at the ICC. The tribunal has to first decide whether it has jurisdiction, and then rule on whether it should conduct a preliminary examination.
It can then ask a judge to open an official investigation, which could lead to a trial.
The office of ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has also confirmed that it has received the complaint filed by Sabio.
Bensouda’s office confirmed it had “received a communication earlier this morning by an attorney from the Philippines,” adding it would “analyze the materials submitted, as appropriate” in line with the tribunal’s guiding Rome Statute and make its decision later.
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, who is among the officials named, said he found the ICC complaint “amusing and baseless.”
“I am both amused and disappointed. Initially, I found the filing of the case amusing. Not only are the allegations contained therein utterly false, they are purely hearsay,” Aguirre said.
Aguirre said Matobato is a discredited witness “whose lack of credibility has been conclusively and glaringly established” in the hearings before the Senate last year.
“If a majority of the Filipino people did not believed him before, why should the ICC believe him now? The equation is simple, if the source is polluted, the output is likewise polluted. Does anybody, in their right mind, still believe Matobato?” he said.
But opposition lawmakers said the ICC case could have a bearing on the impeachment complaint filed against Duterte.
Magdalo party-list Rep. Gary Alejano, who filed an impeachment complaint against the President, said Sabio’s case against Duterte for alleged “crime against humanity” would be a “big factor” when it is taken up in the House of Representatives’ committee on justice which hears impeachment complaints.
Alejano wants Duterte impeached for betrayal of public trust and culpable violations of the Constitution for his administration’s war on drugs and the Davao Death Squad when he was mayor.
At least 198 lawmakers or two-thirds of its 293 House members are either party mates or coalition allies of Duterte under the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).
Akbayan Party-list Rep. Tom Villarin said the ICC case would change the complexion of the impeachment proceedings.
“As a highly political mechanism it is a game of numbers which unfortunately the President has in the lower chamber. But again its outright dismissal might trigger the ICC to seriously have a closer look into the [Sabio] case,” Villarin said.
Duterte on Thursday lashed out at the New York Times for an editorial that said he must be stopped.
“It’s about time their publication must also stop,” Duterte said.
In an impromptu interview with reporters, Duterte called the Times “an a**hole.” With Joel E. Zurbano