Two old hands in Philippine politics gave opposing views to the proposed investigation by the International Criminal Court into the drug war killings as well as deaths in Davao City under the leadership of President Duterte.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel III said Sunday the national government must cooperate with the ICC inquiry.
But former senate president Juan Ponce Enrile said what the ICC wanted to do would be against the Philippine constitutions and asked authorities to bar the entry of ICC probers.
Earlier, the ICC approved the start of a probe on killings in the Philippines’ bloody drug war, but Malacañang has continued to downplay the investigation.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Duterte would rather die than face the international court’s investigation.
For Pimentel, if the country was following the justice system and it was not violating any rights, it should cooperate with the ICC.
“Let’s not be uncooperative. It seems as though we are scared.
Especially if we have nothing to hide,” Pimentel said in Tagalog over Super Radyo dzBB.
Enrile called on the Filipinos to defend President Rodrigo Duterte from critics and detractors supporting the move of the International Criminal Court to conduct a formal investigation into his administration’s drug war.
He dismissed the Hague-based court, noting that those authorized to look into the anti-illegal drug operations should be declared “persona non grata”
“The International Criminal Court keeps insisting on investigating the President of the Philippines, they do not realize that he’s authorized by the Constitution to enforce the laws,” he said in an interview over SMNI News Channel, the broadcasting arm of a Philippine television evangelist, Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, posted on Youtube on September 18.
Enrile said since the country’s highest elected official can be held accountable through the process of impeachment, there is no need for the ICC to step in.
Since the Philippines was once a member of the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, Pimentel said it must still support the ICC.
Pimentel, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said “The image that we want for the Philippines is to be responsible and cooperative. We are not a rogue state. If there is an international treaty, we want to achieve something good, and we should support that.”
While the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Statute took effect on March 17, 2019, the ICC said the court retained jurisdiction with respect to alleged crimes that occurred on the territory of the country while it was a state party, from November 1, 2011 up to and including March 16, 2019.
Enrile said Filipinos should make a joint effort to protect the President as a “symbol of statehood.”
“We, Filipinos can impeach our President, but if the President is being persecuted by foreigners, the President, symbol of our statehood, who is not an ordinary person…we must all bond together to support him and throw out any foreigner who cast any doubt on the authority and nobility on our President,” he added.
Enrile said the ICC seemed to be using Duterte’s critics and detractors to further their “political agenda.”
“If we’re really Filipinos, we must defend the elected leader of our country. Let us not allow foreigners
to insult us…A slap on our President by others, from other countries is a slap on the Filipino people,” he said.
Enrile said those who supported the ICC probe were most likely communists.
“Those who support the ICC are leftists who go against our kind of government. They’re probably followers of Karl Marx and [Vladimir] Lenin. If they want to become communists, they should go to Russia or North Korea,” he said.
He said a communist type of government was “impractical” in the country’s current setting.
On Wednesday, judges at the ICC gave its green light to the request of its former chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to conduct a full-blown investigation into Duterte’s drug war.
Malacañang has insisted that Duterte would never allow ICC to have jurisdiction over him because the Philippines has a “working” justice system.
Duterte has repeatedly said he would only participate in the ICC investigation if local courts are no longer functioning.
The ICC’s move to conduct an investigation into Duterte’s drug war came despite the Philippines’ cutting of ties with the international court.
The Philippines formally withdrew its membership from the ICC on March 17, 2019, or exactly a year after it revoked the Rome Statute that created the international tribunal.