Imee: If DOJ drafted complaint vs Duterte, why was he surrendered to ICC?

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President Marcos' narrative adds fuel to the fire because he's wishy-washy. He should stand firm with the ICC and rejoin the Court as soon as possible, says human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares.

MANILA, Philippines – A day before the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued the warrant against former president Rodrigo Duterte, a task force of the Department of Justice had already given notice that it was drafting a local complaint of crimes against humanity against the former president, according to a document that Senator Imee Marcos showed on Thursday, April 3.

The DOJ memorandum was dated March 6 telling Prosecutor General Richard Fadullon that: “As of this writing, our private legal team is in the process of drafting the revised complaint for violation of Republic Act 9851…against former president Rodrigo Duterte and his accomplices.”

It was signed by the task force lead, senior deputy state prosecutor Herbert Calvin Abugan. RA 9851 is the International Humanitarian Law, the same law used by the House quad committee to recommend a crimes against humanity case against Duterte.

Rappler has reached out to Fadullon and Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla to verify the document. Remulla said he will check with Abugan.

Imee Marcos’ purpose for showing this document was to question why her brother’s government would surrender Duterte to the ICC when the DOJ was well on its way to building up a local case against him.

“Kung may case buildup, may draft complaint (if there was a case buildup, a draft complaint), why did we still have to cooperate with the ICC?” she asked. She could not get clarification from any of the officials involved because the Marcos Cabinet had been ordered to skip future hearings, citing executive privilege.

The warrant of arrest was issued March 7, or the day after the memorandum, and was transmitted via a diffusion request to the Interpol 3 am Manila time on March 11. It immediately reached the Philippine police, who effected Duterte’s arrest later that day with other Philippine officials, including Fadullon who served the warrant.

This newly-disclosed information goes to the heart of the question: how badly did President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. want Duterte shipped to the ICC?

Malacañang to this day stands firm on its position that the Philippines has no obligation to the ICC as a non-member and that the Court has no jurisdiction. President Marcos’ excuse for allowing the arrest of Duterte is that he had to cooperate with the Interpol, or otherwise risk our good standing in the organization.

While complementarity is a valued feature of the ICC, where the Court steps aside to give the Philippine local system a chance to prosecute the same crimes, the Marcos government could also say that it couldn’t, even if it wanted to. In the last hearing, Justice Secretary Remulla said the local justice system was indeed too weak to prosecute Duterte.

(Read previous stories on how the Supreme Court case was stalled and the DOJ reinvestigation proved futile.)

ICC personnel’s visit to the Philippines

On Thursday, Imee Marcos also disclosed other sensitive confidential details such as the names of the personnel from the ICC prosecution who came to visit the Philippines last year for a field investigation. She also got her hands on a purported document detailing the ICC prosecution’s agenda in the Philippines, which includes interviews with several policemen.

Imee Marcos’ purpose for showing this is again to illustrate the extent of government cooperation with the ICC despite her brother’s public insistence that he was disengaging from the court.

Some of the documents that the ICC prosecution allegedly wanted to get were the bank accounts of Peter Parungo, the person named by retired police colonel Royina Garma as having helped implement the reward system of the war on drugs. They also allegedly asked to get the call records of Irmina “Muking” Espino, a staffer to Senator Bong Go in the Palace, whom Garma also named as a disbursing officer who executed the reward system for the police killings.

The purported ICC prosecution document also indicates representatives wanted to meet with the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) and the Armed Forces and Police Savings and Loans Association, Inc. Other documents the ICC prosecution wanted to allegedly get were hospital records of killed drug suspects, and other records of the notorious PS-6 police station in Quezon City headed by the “Davao boy” Lito Patay who logged most of the kills in 2016.

Imee Marcos seemed to assume that everything on the alleged ICC agenda were given, and said that this happened “while the administration is claiming it did not help the ICC.”

“Nagtataka po tayo kung bakit itinatanggi ng ating mga opisyal na may ganito (I wonder why our officials keep denying it),” the senator said.

It also does not help the administration that on the one hand, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said that all the concrete planning only happened on the day of the arrest, but on the other hand the operations commander General Nicolas Torre told Rappler that “matagal na ‘yung plano (the plan has been there a long time) it’s not spur of the moment.”

The suggestion of former Bayan Muna representative Neri Colmenares, part of the legal group of Rise Up representing drug war victims, is for Marcos to stand firm with the ICC and rejoin the Court as soon as possible.

“‘Yung narrative ni President Marcos only adds fuel to the fire kasi wishy-washy siya. Hindi fair na ang mga biktima ang natatamaan kasi Malacañang wants to keep distance from the issue,” Colmenares told Rappler on March 28.

(President Marcos’ narrative only adds fuel to the fire because he’s wishy-washy. It’s not fair that the victims are the ones being attacked because Malacañang wants to keep distance from the issue.)

“Aminin na nila na nag-cooperate ang Pilipinas, period (They should just admit that the Philippines cooperated, period),” said Colmenares.

– Rappler.com