“He wanted to confuse the ICC, the Marcos administration, and the rest of us.”
When former President Duterte testified before the Senate Blue-Ribbon committee about all the killings in his brutal and bloody war against illegal drugs, I knew that he was up to something.
Like when, Santa Banana, he admitted the so-called Death Squad when he was mayor of Davao City, composed not of members of the police force but of gangsters and ordinary citizens who love to kill. My suspicion was that Duterte had a game plan not only to confuse the International Criminal Court (ICC), but the Marcos administration as well. When Duterte also testified before the House of Representatives Quad Committee repeating what he told the Senate, I was convinced about his game plan.
Sure enough, my suspicion was confirmed that the former President was really up to something. He wanted to make the issue to his benefit.
Several questions come up in the wake of what Duterte was up to. Can he really confuse the ICC and the Marcos administration? Does Duterte really believe that he can get out of the clutches of the ICC, thinking that being a lawyer he must have thought that there was no specific law in the Philippines that he could be accused of for all the killings and even for all the extrajudicial killings?
What Duterte failed to consider was that while the Revised Penal Code was not specific about “crimes against humanity,” Duterte and his cohorts can be tried by any local court under “international humanitarian law.” And there’s no special court to be created for that since any local court can be designated as a special court to try him and his cohorts.
My own sources say that any moment now an arrest order by the ICC can be issued. And there is really no problem of the ICC not issuing the arrest warrant since the Interpol is there.
The Interpol has a standing cooperation agreement with the Marcos administration to serve the ICC’s warrants of arrest anywhere in the Philippines, and the Marcos administration has to cooperate.
My gulay, the case “crimes against humanity” against Duterte and his cohorts is beginning to look like a teleserye. But if Duterte and his cohorts think they can escape the clutches of the ICC, they are sadly mistaken. I have read the history of the ICC when it was formed by the United Nations Rome Statute when the UN went after the Nazis after the Holocaust and when Nazi Germany surrendered.The ICC’s history is that everybody it went after never escaped its clutches. Duterte and his cohorts won’t be the exception, and even with Duterte’s game plan.
What I find ridiculous is an attempt of Duterte to plead full moral and legal responsibility and accountability for the killings of the “Davao Death Squad” was his claim that the killings were done by gangsters and even the rich people of the city who just wanted to kill criminals and everybody else involved in illegal drugs. And being the mayor of the city at that, he encouraged them?
That is silly being the mayor of the city; those killings were definitely his responsibility. If anybody would believe him, he must be crazy. The truth of the matter was that the death squad were members of the police force and every Davaoeño knew it, Santa Banana!
I am surprised with the statement of Sara Duterte that her father should be given an award as the Best Dramatic Actor. Was she implying that her father was just acting, not telling the truth? And for what reason? The investigation of the Senators of the House should find answers.
