Philippines will not cooperate with ICC in drug war probe: Marcos

MANILA - The Philippines will no longer deal with the International Criminal Court (ICC), President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Friday, after The Hague-based tribunal rejected Manila’s appeal to

stop a probe into a deadly drug war

.

Thousands of people have been killed in the anti-narcotics campaign started by former president Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 and continued under Mr Marcos.

“We’re done talking with the ICC,” Mr Marcos told reporters during a visit to the southern island of Mindanao, according to an official transcript. “The alleged crimes are here in the Philippines, the victims are Filipino, so why go to The Hague? It should be here.”

The ICC launched a formal inquiry into Mr Duterte’s crackdown in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said that it was re-examining several hundred cases of drug operations that led to deaths at the hands of the police, hitmen and vigilantes.

ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan asked to reopen the inquiry in June 2022. Pre-trial judges at the court gave the green light in late January – a decision that Manila appealed against shortly afterwards.

A five-judge bench on Tuesday dismissed Manila’s objection that the court had no jurisdiction because the Philippines pulled out of the ICC in 2019, some three years before the inquiry was resumed.

Mr Marcos said on Friday that the government would take “no more actions” regarding the ICC ruling, but would “continue to defend the sovereignty of the Philippines and continue to question the jurisdiction of the ICC in their investigations”.

More than 6,000 people were killed in the police’s anti-drug operations during Mr Duterte’s term, official government figures show, but ICC prosecutors estimate the death toll at between 12,000 and 30,000.

The drug war has continued under Mr Marcos, even though he has pushed for more focus on prevention and rehabilitation.

More than 350 drug-related killings have been recorded since Mr Marcos took office last June, according to figures compiled by Dahas, a University of the Philippines-backed research project that keeps count of such killings.

Opened in 2002, the ICC is the world’s only permanent court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and aims to prosecute the worst abuses when national courts are unable or unwilling.

Manila argues it has a fully functioning judicial system, and as such, its courts and law enforcement should handle the investigation into alleged rights abuses during the drug war – not the ICC.

Only four police officers have been convicted of killing drug suspects in two separate cases since the start of the crackdown in 2016.

Rights groups allege that the killings were carried out as part of a state policy, and that Mr Duterte had publicly encouraged them with incendiary rhetoric.

During his presidency, Mr Duterte openly encouraged law enforcers to shoot suspects in anti-drug operations if the lawmen felt their own lives were in danger. AFP