"The government should reconsider its hardline position against the ICC."
The hot news in recent days is the request by former International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to open a formal investigation on the anti-drug campaign of the Philippine government.
If the request is granted, it will be the first time in our history that the country together with some government officials will be investigated for crimes against humanity. To put this into context, the charge is the same as one of the charges filed against German Nazi and Japanese war leaders in the war crime trials in Nuremberg and Tokyo after the Second World War. It’s a distinction that no Filipino in his right mind would want.
As some critics of the government are saying, if the government has nothing to hide and believe that it has done nothing wrong, it should cooperate. The accusation is indeed serious. It is alleged that thousands of drug suspects were killed by elements of law enforcement agencies under the guise of legitimate police operations. Considering the number of deaths being mentioned, it is hard to believe that the government would allow it. The government should cooperate to prove that the accusation is false and all reports of irregularities are being investigated by concerned government agencies. But all that we have heard so far from Secretary Harry Roque is that all that he has seen are nothing but hearsay statements mostly lifted from newspaper reports which are not admissible in any court proceedings. He also said that the ICC will receive no cooperation from the government because the investigation is politically motivated.
Harry Roque should give Bensouda some credit. She is, after all, also an imminently trained jurist who knows her business. She would not have made the request if all she has are useless newspaper clippings. She must have something up her sleeves. President Duterte for his part said last Monday that the ICC effort is a lot of bull—t and went on to say that he will never submit himself to a white man’s court. He will only agree if the charges were filed in the Philippines with a Filipino judge presiding.
Those are fighting words from the President. But after five years of this war on illegal drugs, what has the country really accomplished? Has the illegal drug problem gone down? To what extent compared to 2016 when the campaign started? So far, we have not seen any in-depth study released by any government agency detailing the status of the current illegal drug supply, origin, use, how many people have been rehabilitated, number of convictions and others. All that the public sees and reads in the news are the number of people getting killed in anti-drug operations. Official government figures point to about 5,700 being killed.
Figures coming from some independent sources however point to about 26,000 being killed. For this reason alone, everyone should be interested to find out the actual figure. For a long time, there has been a long-standing argument among some law enforcement practitioners whether the use of unconventional methods in the enforcement of laws should be practiced.
This debate, to the best of my knowledge, has never been settled. And as an old law enforcement hand, I am certain that quite a number of those who were killed must have died under suspicious circumstances and these must be properly investigated. I realize that many people support the President’s anti-drug war but I also believe that they want the drug campaign waged legally and do not support extrajudicial killings.
Whether we like it or not, under our system of government, criminal suspects have rights. Their guilt must still be proven in a court of law. This was the purpose of the review panel created and chaired by DOJ Secretary Menardo Guevarra. Unfortunately, it’s taking a long time and only 328 cases are being reviewed. In addition, no case has yet been filed against any erring police personnel nor a report made public or submitted to President Duterte.
Bansouda also took note of this review panel but concluded that the process is too slow to produce results. Hopefully, the government will rethink its position and agree to a dialogue to find some common grounds for possible cooperation instead of simply circling the wagon and digging in for a long drawn out fight. The country will stand to gain more by cooperating. Besides, this is a long process and it’s probable that some actors in this drama would have been gone by the time any trial could start. That is assuming that there will even be a trial.
Lastly, the government should reconsider its hardline position and find grounds for cooperation because in the end, it is doubtful whether it can win this fight.
