Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III. INQUIRER.NET PHOTO/CATHY MIRANDA
MANILA, Philippines — What gains did the Philippines get from the International Criminal Court (ICC)?
“Nothing,” Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III said on Monday.
The Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC, amid its probe on President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs last year, took effect on Sunday.
READ: PH pullout from ICC effective in a year
Sotto believes that the withdrawal would not affect the country’s ties with other nations.
“I don’t think so,” he said in an interview after the groundbreaking ceremony of the new building of the Senate in Taguig City.
“As a matter of fact, the United States is also not inclined to support the ICC. They are barring the members of the ICC from interfering with United States policies,” the Senate leader pointed out.
Sotto noted how the issue of the alleged extrajudicial killings has been muddled when it was raised to the ICC for investigation.
He said the ICC, for instance, was being fed with wrong information like the bloated number of the deaths, which allegedly resulted from the government’s drug war.
“In the last figures that I know, that I have seen, 68,000 plus ang mga drug operations, and there are more than 78,000 arrests. Ang namatay doon sa mga drug operations na ito, a little over 3,000 only,” the senator said.
“Kaya lang the figures that they sent the ICC, and I don’t know who are these people sending figures, sabi mga 12,000 daw yung mga napatay.”
“Pag tiningnan mo yung listahan, based doon sa aming intel doon sa nakakaalam sa ICC, yung listahan sinama lahat pati homicide, pati yung kung anu-anong kamatayan na wala namang kinalaman sa drug operations or anti-drug operations,” Sotto said.
So when pressed again if the withdrawal would have any negative effects to the country, the Senate leader said: “Wala. I don’t think there is.”
“In so many years of the Philippines, from the establishment of the Philippines as a republic, from 1945-46, up to the present, meron na bang magandang nangyari na involved ang ICC? Meron na bang pangyayari na nakinabang ang Pilipinas? Wala.
“As a matter of fact, ngayon parang pineperwisyo pa tayo as far as the media is concerned,” said Sotto. /je