On Tuesday came another important ruling on the state-sponsored extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. Despite rantings in Manila and various threats to block all work of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the Philippines Situation, the Court threw out a Marcos/Duterte government’s appeal.
The Court’s prosecutor has been investigating tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings under the Duterte government in the time when the Philippines was a member of the ICC until March 2019. The killings have continued until today according to extensive evidence.
Once the International Criminal Court began to investigate extra judicial killings in the trail of bodies that followed Rodrigo Duterte in his time in Davao City politics and in 2016 as President of the Philippines, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC.
In his 15-page statement, on 13 March 2018, then President Duterte said he was withdrawing the Philippines from the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute.
Mr. Duterte blamed “baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks” by UN officials, and ICC actions for withdrawing from the ICC. Until then the Philippines had from the start in 2000 always supported the International Criminal Court according to government records.
On Monday of this week, Philippines Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, in an interview, said Philippine authorities will not comply if the ICC issues warrants of arrest against individuals in the Philippines and that the Philippines will essentially obstruct the process of justice.
“No. They won’t do anything here. They have nothing to do here. What are they going to do? Invade us? Do they want to come here just like a colonizer?” Remulla said.
“We do not want other countries interfering with the justice system in the Republic of the Philippines … It’s enough. We are a free country, we have our own system of implementing our laws,” Remulla added.
On Tuesday, 18 July 2023, at 10:00 (The Hague local time), the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) delivered, in open Court, its judgment on the appeal of the Philippines Government against ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I’s authorization, pursuant to article 18(2) of the Rome Statute, to resume the investigation of the Prosecutor (ICC-01/21-65). The Chamber in this appeal is composed of Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, Presiding, Judge Piotr Hofmański, Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa and Judge Gocha Lordkipanidze. Photo Credit: ICC
Dale Carter, security director for The RINJ Foundation which has done extensive forensic investigations into the crime spree of certain individuals has suggested a summary which a number of biostatisticians have agreed upon.
“Our data is extensive, and it shows that while Rodrigo Duterte may have entertained the notion that killing drug users and sellers would end the drug trade, it only drove it deeper underground. Even Duterte’s son was put into the position of having to deny involvement in smuggling drugs. But all the while, Duterte’s structured plan of giving teams of killers a pair of handguns, ammunition, a motorcycle, a list, and $40 USD per kill in Philippines peso equivalent, as one of the team members told us on the quiet, went completely out of control beyond the wildest imaginations of the man,” said Ms. Carter.
“We believe that Duterte and his henchmen—in fact we know this to be true because of our immersive investigations—lost control. After Duterte made it clear to the population that he wanted certain persons killed and anyone who had a gun could do the killing with impunity, a free-for-all murder rampage began. Duterte controlled all the Barangay captains after he cancelled elections and named the captains to their seats in the local government. These were the people who provided killers with the lists. The barangay bosses mostly killed people they did not like in their own areas, including girls who said “no”; girls who were not asked but were raped and threatened to tell (many contacted our Helpline); people who spoke out against Duterte including mayors, journalists, lawyers and teachers; and the list goes on. Barangay captains became warlords.” Ms. Carter explains.
“Across the country, people killed persons they did not like and threw a piece of paper or cardboard on the corpse saying, “druggie” or “pusher” in the local dialect. That was their impunity. We have many anecdotal stories,” Ms. Carter said.
30,711 Extrajudicial Killings were done by hundreds of paid assassins, many of them having spoken to the media and revealed their methods.
As was reported yesterday, 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.
Duterte’s people were becoming more brazen as time went by. Those persons included many people still in government.
Persons named thus far and alleged to 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
Annual violent deaths increased from 10,710 to 20,580 per year during the Duterte Administration.
“That leaves violent deaths roughly doubled from an already colossal death rate of about 9.6 murders per 100,000 persons in 2015 to 19.6 murders per 100,000 persons right now. (Citing: Here are the numbers. The Philippines Extrajudicial Killings [In-Depth] – The RINJ Foundation)