INTODACTION
A TOTAL of 3,257 extrajudicial
killings (EJKs) were committed during the Marcos dictatorship. In contrast,
there were 805 drug-related fatalities from May 10 (when Rodrigo Duterte emerged winner of the presidential
election) to Aug. 12, per the Inquirer count.
If the current rate continues, the
total number of EJKs for the six years of the Duterte administration will end up about
700 percent more than the killings committed during the 14 years of the Marcos
dictatorship.
President
Duterte is
either ill-advised or terribly underestimating the risk that he can be held
liable at the International Criminal Court, given the circumstances of the killing
In 2011, the Philippines ratified the Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court. Under this treaty, every Filipino, including the President, can be tried by this Court which has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity. The treaty provides that when murder is “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,” it becomes a crime against humanity.
The
possibility that the current EJKs will be considered by the International
Criminal Court as amounting to a crime against humanity is a liability risk
that our President is miscalculating.
It
is true that our current justice system is notoriously imperfect and
graft-prone. But we do not improve our way of life by marching back to the Dark
Ages where justice is made synonymous with violence. We improve our defective
justice system by fixing it, not by abandoning it.
It is
also true that before our children become drug dependents who clog police and
court dockets, there are the education, health, and social welfare departments
which are executive agencies within the President’s control to tap for
instructive, reformative, and curative solutions to the drug menace.
We
want our President to succeed in his fight against illegal drugs. But in his
haste and zeal, he may end up accused of a crime more serious than the ones
perpetrated by his archenemies. The last thing our country needs is a President
facing trial at the International Criminal Court.
PURPOSE
“There
is State responsibility if the State or its agents induced, encouraged,
condoned, acquiesced or even applauded it (killing) and did not do anything to
prevent, abate or stop it, and/or did not genuinely investigate and
prosecute/punish the actual perpetrator,” Olalia adds.
