Crimes vs humanity? Democracy ‘robust’ under Duterte, says Palace

President Duterte has not retaliated against those responsible for “vilifying” him in the International Criminal Court (ICC), which shows to the world that the Philippines had a “robust democracy” despite complaints that the nation’s leader had committed crimes against humanity in his brutal war on drugs, according to Malacañang.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo on Thursday told reporters the President “just leaves alone those who are vilifying him.”

“He has not pressed any charges against anyone,” he said. He added that “lies can only be sustained for sometime, and once it haunts the peddler, then those lies melt in the heat of truth.”

No jurisdiction

“That is what is happening right now. As far as the President is concerned, the truth is eventually revealed despite all your lies. It only shows that this is a robust democracy in place,” Panelo said.

He repeated the administration’s position that the tribunal based in The Hague had no jurisdiction over Mr. Duterte because the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC, was never published in the Official Gazette or any local newspaper, which he said was a legal requirement to make it binding on the country. The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC on Wednesday told the Inquirer in an email exchange that it could not reject the complaint filed in April 2017 by lawyer Jude Josue Sabio just because he had withdrawn it. ‘Political propaganda’

It said its own regulations and the Rome Statute did not allow it to discard any complaint or communication, which it keeps in an “evidence database.” It also had other sources of information regarding the allegations against the President, it said. The preliminary examination of the charges against Mr. Duterte would continue, it added, noting that the alleged human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, were committed while the Philippines was still a member of the ICC. The Philippines withdrew from the ICC in March 2018 on orders of the President. It took effect a year later.

Sabio told ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that the complaint he had filed based on allegations of two former aides of Mr. Duterte—retired police officer Arturo Lascañas and confessed hit man Edgar Matobato—should be trashed because it was just political propaganda against the President by the opposition led by the Liberal Party (LP). Sabio also said he was paid a mere “pittance” for his legal services by opposition figures.Human rights groups have said that Sabio’s turnaround would have no effect on the ICC processes or the OTP’s work as other similar complaints had been filed against Mr. Duterte and his associates.

Leni: Outright lie

Opposition leaders, including Sen. Francis Pangilinan, the LP president, have dismissed Sabio as a “balimbing” (two-faced) who had lost credibility. On Thursday, Vice President Leni Robredo, the LP chair, said the party did not have a hand in the ICC complaint filed by Sabio and called his allegation that it was part of the opposition’s political propaganda an “outright lie.” She challenged the lawyer to identify his supposed source in the party.

“I do not even know him (Sabio), and he has never talked to me … if he does not name his supposed source in the LP, then everyone else in the party who know nothing about the issue could be implicated,” Robredo told reporters during a visit to Caloocan City. Gadon’s face

Robredo said the mere fact that Sabio was accompanied by staunch Duterte supporter Lorenzo Gadon when he signed his sworn statement withdrawing the complaint indicated that it was a “100-percent lie.”

“The moment I saw [Gadon’s] face in photos, I already knew that it would be the same situation as the previous sedition [charges],” she said. Robredo, former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, detained Sen. Leila de Lima and more than 30 others were charged with sedition for their alleged involvement in the viral videos called “The Real Narcolist,” which circulated on social media ahead of the May 2019 polls.

Peter Joemel “Bikoy” Advincula, who admitted that he was the hooded figure in the videos that implicated Mr. Duterte’s family and associates in the illegal drug trade, later claimed that the videos were produced by Trillanes and others in the opposition who were eventually named in the sedition charges.

Robredo, who was appointed and then sacked by Mr. Duterte as cochair of the Interagency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (Icad), said she was willing to attend congressional hearings to discuss her findings on the administration’s failures in the war on drugs. She, however, has not received any invitation from either the House or the Senate.

44-percent satisfied

“I want the [congressional hearings] to push through because I want to reveal all the findings, other than the printed report that we already have. I will be given a chance to discuss what is wrong in the campaign and therefore suggest proper solutions,” she said.

A survey by Social Weather Stations showed 44 percent of Filipinos were “satisfied” with Robredo’s 18-day stint as Icad cochair.“I am grateful to know that 44 percent [were satisfied with my performance] because we all know how vilified I was when I sat as Icad cochair,” she said. —WITH A REPORT FROM MEG ADONIS