Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s top legal adviser has lashed out at the International Criminal Court’s decision to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity during his bloody war on drugs.
Duterte’s spokesman, Harry Roque, said the president was unfazed when he’d informed him late Wednesday of the court’s decision.
Duterte, who has cheered many of the deaths but denied condoning extrajudicial killings of drug suspects, is constitutionally prohibited from running for another term as president in elections next year. But he has announced he will run as vice president instead in a maneuver critics have said is an attempt to both maintain power and insulate himself from the ICC investigation, which has been expected.
Duterte’s chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, alleged that the Netherlands-based international court was “being utilized as a political and propaganda apparatus” by Duterte’s political opponents.“While we expect that more theatrics will be employed by the detractors of the president as election season draws near, this blatant and brazen interference and assault on our sovereignty as an independent country by the ICC is condemnable,” he said in a written statement.
“On multiple occasions, Duterte publicly supported and encouraged the killing of petty criminals and drug dealers in Davao City.” The investigation will look at killings that took place during some of the time Duterte was mayor, and during his time as president between July 1, 2016 and March 16, 2019, the date the Philippines withdrew from the court.
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