OVER 90 percent of the victims of the government’s drug war are in favor of the conduct of an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the alleged crimes against humanity committed in the Philippines, the ICC said on Monday, August 30, 2021.
In a report, the ICC said that of the 204 victims representations submitted on behalf of around 1,530 individual victims and 1,050 families, 194 wanted an investigation conducted by the international body.
It said the main motivating factors cited by the victims were genuine investigation by an impartial international court; identifying and bringing the perpetrators to justice; ending impunity; preventing future crimes; knowing the truth about what happened to victims and clearing their names of false accusations; and allowing for victims’ voices to be heard.
“The representations received overwhelmingly support the OTP (Office of the Prosecutor) request. They also bring forward the victims’ views and concerns regarding justice, the ICC, the potential scope of an investigation and the impact of the so-called ‘War on Drugs’ (“WoD”) on victims’ lives and their society,” it said.
The victims who sent representations said the ICC investigation is their last hope as they seek justice and hold those people involved accountable.
The ICC said the Victims Participation and Reparations Section also showed that aside from murder and attempted murder, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, rape and other forms of sexual violence, enforced disappearance of persons, torture and other inhumane acts were also being committed in the Philippines amid the implementation of the drug war.
The victims said members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and unidentified men usually wearing civilian clothes, bonnets and masks were involved in the commission of the said crimes.
In a statement, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. maintained that the Filipinos support President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war.
“We consider the Public Redacted Registry Report on Victims’ Representation submitted to the ICC as more of the opinion of victims wanting the ICC probe rather than erosion of support of the Filipino people. An independent local survey shows that 88 percent of Filipinos backed President Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs,” Roque said.
“It is just unfortunate that the Office of the Prosecutor has been used by his ardent critics and detractors as a political tool,” he added.
On June 14, 2021, a day before her retirement, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda requested for the conduct of an official investigation into the alleged crimes of humanity being committed in the Philippines amid the government’s drug war covering the period from 2016 to March 2019, before Duterte withdrew the country’s membership from the Rome Statute.
Roque earlier maintained that the government will not participate in the probe.
On June 29, the ICC urged the supposed victims of Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs to provide their “views, concerns and expectations” for the possible conduct of investigation into the bloody campaign as requested by Bensouda. (SunStar Philippines)