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MANILA, Philippines — Threatening to arrest investigators of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who visit the country would only signal to the world that the Philippines was a “rogue” state, activists said on Tuesday after chief presidential counsel Juan Ponce Enrile issued such a warning.
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) adviser Neri Colmenares and Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes criticized Enrile for saying he would advise President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. not to recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, adding that he would “cause their arrest [because] … they interfere too much with our affairs.”Colmenares said that authorities could not simply go arresting foreigners unless there was a warrant or if they had committed a crime.
“The ICC has not said anything [about its investigators visiting] the Philippines, which requires Enrile to give his legal advice,” he added. “He has no legal basis under our laws for arresting visitors who are not committing any crime.”
According to Colmenares, Marcos’ jet-setting ways to build up the Philippines’ reputation abroad “would be put to waste if his administration goes arresting foreigners without legal basis.” Reyes issued a similar sentiment, saying that “threatening the ICC investigators with arrest will only tell the international community that the Philippines is a rogue state without any respect for international norms and laws.”
Colmenares, also one of the legal counsels for the families of victims of extrajudicial killings that had sought the ICC’s help, challenged Enrile to read Article 127 of the Rome Statute, which compels the Philippines to cooperate with the ICC even if it had already withdrawn from the Rome Statute.
“Invoking sovereignty to evade accountability is so overused now,” echoed Reyes. “The Marcos regime cannot invoke sovereignty to escape accountability for crimes against humanity, especially not when the Philippines was a signatory to the Rome Statute.”
Both urged Enrile and Marcos to “stop lawyering for [former] President [Rodrigo] Duterte by representing him in the ICC” and to cooperate with the court instead.
The ICC earlier announced the resumption of its own investigation of the thousands of killings in the drug war during the term of Duterte as president and as Davao City mayor.
According to the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber, while it recognized the government’s efforts to probe the drug war killings, it was “not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations, or is making a real or genuine effort to carry out such investigations and any subsequent criminal prosecutions ….”
While the court has yet to identify any accused, there are strong indicators that Duterte and former Philippine National Police chief, now Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, are likely to be named as they were the main architects of the drug war that killed at least 12,000 in the last six years.