PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte is confident that he could prove his innocence before the International Criminal Court (ICC), Malacañang said Friday, February 9.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr., in a press conference in Camarines Sur, said the President believed that the international court would find no reasonable ground to proceed with a preliminary investigation into charges that Duterte committed crimes against humanity under his bloody war on illegal drugs.
Roque said the ICC would end up finding no evidence against Duterte, just as former United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston did when he looked into the then Davao City mayor's alleged links to vigilante group Davao Death Squad (DDS).
"The President, when I consulted him for this matter, said that even the former UN special rapporteur on extra-legal killings Philip Alston, in his report -- if you remember -- cleared him of any possible criminal liability when the special rapporteur investigated the workings of the alleged Davao Death Squad," he said.
"So the President said that if the conclusion of the UN special rapporteur was that the police was only liable for simple negligence, he is very confident that the prosecutor therefore will not go beyond a preliminary investigation," Roque added.
Roque was referring to Alston's investigation in 2007 on the supposed human rights violations in the Philippines, including Duterte's alleged connections to the DDS. Alston, a former UN special rapporteur on, came up with two reports in 2008 and 2009.
Alston wrote in his 2008 report that while Duterte had stated that he would make Davao "dangerous" and "not a very safe place" for criminals, the former mayor had managed to "largely insulate his city from the armed conflict and to limit the presence of some kinds of criminal activity."
In 2009, he merely noted that Duterte had "done nothing" to prevent the killings. Alston also implied that the then Davao City mayor's comments suggested that "he is, in fact, supportive" of the mass murder.
Roque's justification came after the ICC informed the Philippines that it will conduct a preliminary examination of the 77-page communication submitted by Jude Sabio, lawyer of alleged DDS member Edgar Matobato, which accused Duterte of committing crimes against humanity for allowing mass murder when he was Davao mayor until he got elected president.
The preliminary examination, which would determine whether there is basis to conduct an investigation, would cover the Duterte presidency since July 2016.
Roque said he believed Duterte would be absolved of any crimes hurled against him.
"He (Duterte) welcomes this as an opportunity to clear his name from the accusation that he is guilty of extralegal killings," Duterte's spokesman said.
"And he is confident that at most, what could be the finding would be similar to the finding of Philip Alston, that sometimes, not all the time, police appear to be negligent in conducting the war against drugs," he added. (VoxPop Philippines)
