EDITORIAL - The ICC steps in

Over a year after suspending a preliminary examination of the brutal war on drugs in the Philippines, the International Criminal Court has decided to proceed with a full-blown investigation. A panel of ICC judges granted on Thursday a request of the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan to reactivate the probe into possible crimes against humanity committed as part of the war on drugs waged by Rodrigo Duterte between November 2011 and March 2019, when he was mayor of Davao City until he became president.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said the ICC move was an “irritant” and an insult to the capability of the country to carry out its own probe, which is ongoing. Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra, who served as Duterte’s justice secretary from April 2018, said the government would appeal the ICC’s decision. Duterte and Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, architect and chief enforcer of Oplan Tokhang when he served as Philippine National Police chief, have said the ICC has no jurisdiction over them and the drug cases.

The Philippines was granted a deferment of the probe in November 2021 as the ICC considered the government’s argument that the country is conducting its own investigation into 6,200 killings in the course of police anti-narcotics operations. Officials have pointed out that the country even has its own law governing crimes against humanity, which has been applied in certain cases.

In allowing the ICC probe to proceed, however, the panel said the deferral was no longer warranted and it is “not satisfied” that the Philippine government is “undertaking relevant investigations” into the killings.

“The various domestic initiatives and proceedings, assessed collectively, do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps in a way that would sufficiently mirror the court’s investigation,” the panel said.

Duterte had pulled the country out of the ICC in 2019 amid the preliminary examination. President Marcos has said he sees no need for the country to rejoin the ICC since the institutions of criminal justice are fully functional. Remulla said the timing of the ICC move was “very wrong” since the country is “doing what it takes to fix the system” including undertaking a cleansing of the PNP.

A major hindrance to this argument is the snail’s pace of the country’s justice system. Despite the enactment of Republic Act 8493 or the Speedy Trial Act of 1998, and the Supreme Court’s issuance of guidelines for continuous trial in court cases in 2010 with revisions in 2018, the Philippine judicial system still moves at glacial pace. And all pillars of the criminal justice system suffer from institutional weaknesses.

But do those weaknesses warrant having the ICC step in? The best argument against having a foreign body undertaking its own investigation of cases in the Philippines is to show that the judicial system in this country is in place and working efficiently.