Former President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday night said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had nothing to do with the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.
“It is the f****** ICC interfering in our private affairs, in the sense that it intrudes into the sovereignty of the other nations,” Duterte said in a mix of Filipino and English at a press conference in Davao City.
“Marcos, I am not in any way dragging him into the picture. That ICC has been at it for a long time.” “If there is anything that I did, it was because I did it for my country,” he said, referring to the thousands of people killed in his anti-drug campaign. “Let the ICC do what they want.
don’t give a damn about them. If some people see what I did was right, or if some see what I did was wrong, I don’t care. I did it for my country. I did it for my children,” he added.
Duterte said he did not care if ICC officials have arrived in the country to investigate the killings under his watch. “I don’t really care if they are here to stay, to investigate, to stay here forever, or to stay here for sightseeing,” Duterte said. “Let’s see what can they can come up with, then I’ll answer them.”
Duterte’s remarks come in the wake of speculation of a widening split in the UniTeam alliance between President Marcos and Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte.
Meanwhile, Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who led the bloody war on drugsas Duterte’s police chief, insisted the ICC has no jurisdiction to conduct an investigation in the Philippines, and the government should not let them do it.
In fact, he said, ICC prosecutors could be deported as undesirable aliens. Dela Rosa was responding to a query if he was already contacted by ICC prosecutors who are reportedly in the country to begin the investigation. Macon Ramos-Araneta
Dela Rosa was among the respondents in the ICC probe along with former President Rodrigo Duterte. Still, Dela Rosa said he was unconvinced by the statement of lawyer Harry Roque that the ICC. prosecutors were already in the country. “Well, if they are already here, there’s nothing we can do… But as far as I know, that is only one source of information that should be validated and confirmed,” he said.
He said that in the field of intelligence, any information should be validated and confirmed by multiple sources.
Dela Rosa also said an ICC investigation would not affect his bid for reelection in 2025.
He said allegations of state-sponsored extrajudicial killings, which have been around since 2019, have not hurt him in opinion polls, where he has scored high.
“It means these have no effect. There’s the Filipino underdog mentality. Filipinos will love you more if you are being attacked,” he added.
Earlier, a lawyer and an overseas Filipino worker asked the Supreme Court to stop the entry of persons connected with the ICC or order their immediate deportation if they are already here in the country to probe Duterte’s blood war on drugs.
Fernando Perito filed the petition before the Regional Trial Court of Calbayog City as a member of the legal profession and was joined by OFW Joseph Forrosuelo.