Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said the government could create an “independent commission” to investigate the thousands of drug war killings during the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte just to prove to the International Criminal Court (ICC) that the country’s justice system was working and the ICC should stop its own probe.
If the government proceeds with its own investigations and judicial processes, such mode of inquiry into the alleged extrajudicial killings can be explored, Guevarra said.
“What I’m saying is we should be given the opportunity by the ICC. Don’t get ahead of us,” he said, addressing the international tribunal.
Guevarra, who served as Duterte’s justice secretary, said he had received several suggestions to form an independent commission to investigate the war on drugs and admitted that he “entertained the idea”.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla also said that he got the same suggestion, but he never liked the idea.
He said he saw no value in it as he assured the public that the current justice system was “competent, capable and running”.
“I’ve always looked upon it without any positive view because I’ve seen this commission’s work before and they never really did a good thing. That’s been done before with the Aquino assassination but we didn’t get anything out of it,” Remulla said.
He was referring to the Agrava Commission that was formed by dictator Ferdinand Marcos following a massive outcry over the assassination of his arch-rival, former senator Benigno Aquino Jr, who was killed on his return form exile in the United States in August 1983.
The commission submitted a report to Marcos which concluded that the assassination of Aquino and his alleged gunman was a military conspiracy and not a communist plot as the dictator himself had declared.
In January this year, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC granted the request of its prosecutor, Karim Khan, to resume his investigation of Duterte’s war on drugs from 2011 when he still mayor of Davao City until the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC, in March 2019.
Duterte and senior officials of his administration had been charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the thousands of deaths in the drug war.
Former Bayan Muna Rep Carlos Zarate questioned Guevarra’s timing.
“Why did the government float that idea just now, when there is already an ongoing investigation by the ICC?” Zarate said. “The victims will think this is just one of the delaying tactics on the part of the present administration.”
Zarate said there would be a “cloud of doubt” over the commission, despite being “independent”, and it would not stop the ICC from continuing its own investigation because it is not stated in the Rome Statute.
House Deputy Minority Leader Rep France Castro is suspicious of such a commission.
Castro said that it “seems to be a desperate attempt” to “further delay or stop” the ICC’s investigation. — Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
