THE ball, as the saying goes, is now in the grassplot of the Department of Justice or DOJ.
We refer to the submitted findings and recommendations of the Quad Comm of Congress, which conducted an oversight hearing on then President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, its findings and recommendations to file charges against Duterte and others submitted to the government agency.
The 79-year-old Duterte, Senators Christopher Lawrence Go, 50, and Ronald Dela Rosa, 62, and other police officials are charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the alleged extrajudicial killings during Duterte’s incumbency from 2016 to 2022.
The Human Rights Watch said Duterte’s “war on drugs” killed between 12,000 and 27,000, far bigger than the 6,700 listed by the police in June 2019.
Six years ago, in August 2018, relatives of several people slain in Duterte’s anti-drug campaign asked the Hague-based International Criminal Court to prosecute him for alleged crimes against humanity, in the second such request for a ruling on thousands of deaths that have occurred during the clampdown.
We heard the President say the DOJ will carefully evaluate the Quad Comm oversight committee’s recommendation to file the charges against Duterte and others, stressing how the legal process is done, with the findings forwarded to the DOJ which will now make the assessment.
We agree with what the President said, that the evaluation process is still in its early stages as he underlined the importance of exhaustive assessment.
On conviction, in general, a person guilty of committing crimes against humanity shall suffer the penalty of reclusion temporal in its medium to maximum period – 12 years and one day to 20 years – and a fine to be computed by the court.
We also heard DOJ Undersecretary Jesse Andres say the Quad Comm recommendations will undergo prompt and punctilious scrutiny by prosecutors who will be independently evaluating all documentary evidence, giving assurances no unsubstantiated harassment suits will be lodged.
The DOJ has established a task force on extrajudicial killings, and has started to collect evidence.
“If the evidence warrants, we will proceed with the filing of cases through the National Prosecution Service,” Andres said, stressing they will not file a harassment case but will hold people accountable when there is sufficient evidence.
At this point, we cannot hyperbolize the importance of not just looking at the letter of the law but reading as well its spirit.
