THE country has signalled a softened stance towards an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into thousands of killings in a “war on drugs”, a probe activists hope will see popular ex-president Rodrigo Duterte face charges of crimes against humanity.
The “war on drugs” was the signature campaign policy that swept Duterte to power in 2016 as a maverick, crime-busting mayor, who delivered on promises he made during vitriolic speeches to kill thousands of narcotics dealers.The firebrand Duterte unilaterally withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s founding treaty in 2019 when it started looking into allegations of systematic extrajudicial killings, and the Philippines has until recently refused to cooperate with the ICC investigation, which it announced in 2023.
