Rody fears international court – Leila

MANILA, Philippines — President Duterte may be acting like he does not care about the case filed against him before the International Criminal Court (ICC), but in the eyes of Sen. Leila de Lima his actions betray his fear of the action of The Hague-based body.

In a statement yesterday, De Lima said the concern of Duterte regarding the ICC case can be seen in his speeches, where he constantly mentions the body.

“For someone who is supposedly unperturbed by the ICC’s conduct of a preliminary examination on the Philippines, Duterte gives an inordinate amount of public speeches lambasting the ICC prosecutor (Fatou Bensouda) and UN officials,” De Lima said. 

“It appears that the President is not entirely unaffected by the threat of an ICC investigation, indictment and trial. He looks scared, and he is taking out his anxiety over his possible arrest by the ICC on ‘that black woman’ from Ghana,” she added, referring to Bensouda, who is actually from Gambia.

In a recent speech before local officials of Pampanga, Duterte aired his contempt of the preliminary investigation being conducted by the ICC and the statements made by UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard regarding his administration’s brutal drug war.

He referred to Callamard as an “undernourished” woman and Bensouda as the “black” woman.

“Duterte’s barbaric words for ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard show that he has just recently emerged from a cave that has deprived him of civilization all his life. He might call his own son Paolo a ‘gangster’ in the same speech, but anyone listening might as well call the President a caveman,” De Lima said.

A lawyer and human rights advocate, De Lima said Duterte was clearly not well versed about the procedures of the ICC.

“Duterte is under the impression that he has a say on any future indictment in The Hague, and that he can resist its jurisdiction. He is of course ignorant on what the Rome Statute is all about,” she said.

According to De Lima, when the time comes that the ICC issues a warrant for Duterte’s arrest, he might as well go back into the cave he emerged from, to hide.

She said Duterte could very well suffer the same fate as the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Libyan prime minister Muammar Gaddafi.

“He can resist it by hiding in a hole, like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi. But the entire world will be looking for him and hunting him down, in the same way all international criminals indicted by the ICC were chased and hunted down,” De Lima said. 

“Duterte will have no problem hiding in a hole once the ICC calls for his arrest. After all, he has been living in a cave his whole life,” she added.

When that time comes, De Lima said Duterte would probably seek refuge in China, “where he will be warmly welcomed and lavishly rewarded as the man who single-handedly turned the Philippines into a Chinese province.”