ANTIE-EJK- Extrajudicial Killing (Criminal Injustice)

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.