ICC adds Sara Duterte to list of POI in Rome Statute charges



The current Philippines Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio is accused in ICC documents of knowing and approving extrajudicial killings while she was Davao City mayor sometimes between 2010 and 2013, and from 2016 to 2022, a disclosed International Criminal Court document reveals. The report links the former mayor to Ronald Dela Rosa, a police official in Davao City until Rodrigo Duterte became President of the Philippines and then Ronald Dela Rosa became head of the Philippines National Police. Ronald Dela Rosa is alleged to have masterminded the Davao Death Squads and the Philippines national Duterte Death Squads.

Sara Duterte-Carpio has been informed of the allegations against her and that she will likely receive a summons and if she ignores the summons, an arrest warrant will be issued. The Philippines government said today that it would not respect any warrant issued by the International Criminal Court or International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), which body is actually the one that carries out the arrests.

 International Criminal Court, The Hague, Netherlands. Photo by Hypergio, Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.


Video: These victims were not drug dealers. There was no trial, no finder of fact and no evidence. They were murdered in a nationwide killing spree in the Philippines which is ongoing today.


The murders the world calls EJKs included little children killed to lever a target when the target could not be reached; human rights defenders, critics of the government, journalists, children with disabilities, teenagers who walked with a limp; girls who made rape reports, and anyone whom a Duterte supporter did not like for any reason. All one had to do was make a complaint to a Barangay official claiming the person they didn’t like was a drug user, and they would be dead in a matter of hours or days. Fees would be paid up and down the chain.

Many Children were killed by Duterte Death Squads. Photo courtesy The RINJ Foundation


The International Criminal Court will rule Tuesday, 18 July 2023, on the last and final ‘drift-and-delay’ appeal put before the Court by the Philippines. Documents shown to FPM.news by officials of the human rights group The RINJ Foundation suggest that the appeal has been unsuccessful and according to one person close to the informaton. “a waste of the Court’s time”.

“They are to do nothing of the sort here. They have no relevance here. What will they do, invade us like we’re just some colony again? That’s over. Enough is enough. We’re a free country with its justice system,” Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said to reporters in Manila while discussing the ICC Appeals Chamber’s predicted verdict.

Persons named thus far and alleged as persons of interest who may have commit horrid crimes against humanity as per documents FPMag has seen:

Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte
Current Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio
Former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre
Former Philippine Police Director General Ronald Dela Rosa
Former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez
Former Interior Secretary Ismael Sueno
Former Police Superintendent Edilberto Leonardo
Senior Police Officer 4 Sanson ‘Sonny’ Buenaventura
Police Superintendent Royina Garma
National Bureau of Investigation Director Dante Gierran
Former Solicitor General Jose Calida
Sen. Richard Gordon
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano
Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go


Below study summary released 5 October, 2019, by the forensic biostatistician team in Singapore which also did projects like conducting the COVID-19 global tracking.

  • Some 25 to 29.7 extra violent deaths occur daily in the Philippines as a result of state-personnel and state-directed-vigilante extra judicial killings.
  • Under Rodrigo Duterte there have been 27,832 extrajudicial killings up to December of 2018. The ICC is investigating crimes prior to 16 March, 2019.

 


 

Philippines Marcos administration’s Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra said in a 16 July statement that if the Philippines’ appeal is dismissed, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan could resume the International Criminal Court investigation, which has been put on hold at each of the Philippines’ appeal tactics.

“There is no further appeal available to the Philippine government. Depending on the evidence he may be able to gather, the ICC prosecutor may seek the issuance of summonses or warrants of arrest against certain individuals. These persons who may be indicted will have to engage their own defense counsel,” Guevarra said.  The Office of the Solicitor General only represents the state.

The Marcos/Duterte Administration since mid 2022 has insisted that the extrajudicial killings from July 2016 to March 2019 when Duterte withdrew the country from the ICC, and the EJKs in the Davao region between 2011 and 2016 are none of them crimes against humanity. The RINJ Foundation forensic statisticians have pegged the number of these killings at over 35,000 as of April 2023. The precise count of EJKs for the period the Philippines was a signatory to the Rome Statute while Duterte was in office as President was 27,832 extrajudicial killings up to December of 2018. The numbers for December 2018, and January and February, FPM.news was told had reached a three month high of  2,879 bringing the total number of EJKs in the Philippines during the Duterte administration and while the Philippines remained as part of the ICC, to 30,711.

The argument raised by the Bongbong Marcos government does not seem to have considered the actual Rome Statute definition of Crime Against Humanity.

The evidence shown in videos above are irrefutable evidence of crimes against humanity based on a reading of Article 7, section 1a and 2a of the Rome Statute.


The Rome Statute

Article 7

Crimes against humanity
1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
(a) Murder;
(b) Extermination;
(c) Enslavement;
(d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
(e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;
(f) Torture;
(g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form
of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
(h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;
(i) Enforced disappearance of persons;
(j) The crime of apartheid;
(k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health

2. For the purpose of paragraph 1:
(a) “Attack directed against any civilian population” means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack;
(b) “Extermination” includes the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of \access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population;
(c) “Enslavement” means the exercise of any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership over a person and includes the exercise of such power in the course of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children;
(d) “Deportation or forcible transfer of population” means forced displacement of the persons concerned by expulsion or other coercive acts from the area in which they are lawfully present, without grounds permitted under international law;
(e) “Torture” means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;
(f) “Forced pregnancy” means the unlawful confinement of a woman forcibly made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the ethnic composition of any population or carrying out other grave violations of international law. This definition shall not in any way be interpreted as affecting national laws relating to pregnancy;
(g) “Persecution” means the intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collective;
(h) “The crime of apartheid” means inhumane acts of a character similar to those referred to in paragraph 1, committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime;
(i) “Enforced disappearance of persons” means the arrest, detention or abduction of persons by, or with the authorization, support or acquiescence of, a State or a political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge that deprivation of freedom or to give information on the fate or whereabouts of those persons, with the intention of removing them from the protection of the law for a prolonged period of time.

3. For the purpose of this Statute, it is understood that the term “gender” refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society. The term “gender” does not indicate any meaning different from the above.