Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV is not exactly my idea of a patriot. He strikes me as furtive and underhanded. It thus confounds me that people I personally know possess agency should go whole hog on his current pet agendum of getting the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate former President Duterte’s alleged extra-judicial killings (EJK).
At the very outset, let me be very clear about one thing. EJK is illegal and abominable. It is downright beastly when done on a large scale as alleged in Duterte’s case and proven in the late Marcos Sr.’s case. EJKs should, therefore, be investigated, the perps prosecuted and meted the full measure of justice. No question there. The question is which entity should prosecute EJKs?
As a matter of self-respect, our Department of Justice(DOJ) should do it and not the ICC. How can we be a sovereign nation when we run to foreign entities to solve domestic problems? It’s pathetic that we should ask the ICC to do this for us. More so when it can arguably be suspected that the enclave that ran to the ICC did so for personal political reasons. Nothing patriotic about it.
The case is about a top Filipino official alleged to have ordered the extra-judicial killing of suspected Filipino drug personalities. We are a sovereign nation. It’s our laws that have been violated. If we have a modicum of self-respect, our DOJ not a foreign agency should bring the perps to justice.
While others don’t give it a thought, some justify going to the ICC by the untrustworthiness of the local justice system. True, our justice system is shot full of holes. But that should only tell us that we take care first to plug those holes. Otherwise, when will we ever stop crying on foreign shoulders for solutions to our domestic problems?
What confounds me more is why people, including many who fought martial law, are pursuing the investigation of Duterte’s alleged EJKs with a grim determination I don’t see in the case of Marcos Sr.’s EJKs. More than EJKs, the late dictator tortured prisoners, made them disappear and did the nation untold economic, political and cultural damage. There is no comparison in the degree of bestiality between the proven EJKs of Marcos Sr. and the alleged EJKs of Duterte.
Yet we have stopped seeking justice for the late dictator’s crimes. We have even elected his son President, as if to say the dictator-father did right or if he did wrong is now forgiven. Indeed, he is dead and is past punishment. But we can at least reject more vehemently than we do now the revision by the son of that dark period in our history.
I see some unfortunate loss of perspective on sovereignty when we toss self-respect in our pursuit of justice by crying on foreign shoulders. I also see a loss of moral perspective when we concentrate all legal firepower on Duterte’s speck that blemishes the nation’s face but not on Marcos’ beam that scars that face beyond recognition.