MANILA, Philippines – Philippine authorities are in a wait-and-see mode in terms of pursuing local cases based on the back-to-back bombshell testimonies at the House quad committee about the murders that happened during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte.
Meanwhile, “we are sure that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is monitoring,” said Kristina Conti, counsel for the families of war on drugs victims, and an ICC-accredited assistant to counsel.
The sensational hearings at the quad committee have so far yielded the following testimonies:
- Retired police colonel Royina Garma divulging the infrastructure of Duterte’s national war on drugs, involving reward payments for police officials who can “deliver” — meaning who can make sure of killing a target. She points to now resigned National Police Commission (Napolcom) commissioner Edilberto Leonardo as a focal point person, and Senator Bong Go as the main source of funds for the rewards and reimbursements. Garma said Duterte wanted to replicate the “Davao model” which is assumed to mean the mysterious but notorious Davao Death Squad (DDS).
- Police Lieutenant Colonel Santie Mendoza admitting that he hired a hitman, allegedly upon the orders of Garma and Leonardo, to kill Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) board secretary Wesley Barayuga in July 2020.
- The testimony of convicted prisoners that another cop, Arthur Narsolis (and Garma’s partner), ordered the killing of three drug lords in August 2016 while detained in the Davao Penal Colony (Dapecol). Narsolis allegedly said it’s been cleared by Duterte. The prison chief of Dapecol at the time, Corrections Senior Superintendent Gerardo Padilla, told the committee that Garma threatened him not to interfere in that operation.
- The testimony of the once self-confessed drug lord Kerwin Espinosa (he now claims he’s just a user) that Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa forced him to implicate former senator Leila De Lima to the drug trade.
Asked if he thinks these testimonies are enough to pursue local cases, Manila 6th District Representative Bienvenido Abante, the chair of the human rights committee, said: “They realize that the quad comm hearing is serious about investigating in aid of legislation, and probably [for] whoever is guilty on this, [the hearing] is also in aid of prosecution.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ), which supervises both prosecutors and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), has the power to initiate motu proprio investigations without the need for someone to file a complaint.
However, Justice Undersecretary Raul Vasquez said they would have to wait first.
“We will initiate the preliminary investigation and case build up once Congress refers its committee report together with the affidavits or when somebody files a complaint against those responsible. Here, it could be the police or private complainants. There must be an initiatory process,” Vasquez told reporters.
Surigao del Norte 2nd District Representative Ace Barbers, chair of the quad committee, told Rappler: “We will submit our partial committee report already so they can initiate filing of charges.”
The Philippine National Police (PNP), which also has power to investigate, said it is now looking into Garma’s testimony specifically as it implicates the entire police institution. Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, who has firmly denied both the testimonies of Espinosa and Garma, said he is “fine” with PNP chief General Rommel Marbil initiating a probe.
“He can initiate his own fact finding effort since the PNP has been at the receiving end in the issue at hand,” said Dela Rosa.
Malacañang says it supports all investigations that will arise.
“The Palace will support the filing but will leave the decision to file entirely to the DOJ or the [Office of the] Ombudsman,” said Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin.
‘ICC is monitoring’
Human rights advocates are looking on the ICC to make the pivotal steps. After all, the ICC is more advanced in its investigation, having started as early as 2018 with its scope wider. The ICC investigation covers the alleged DDS killings from 2011 to 2016, because the Philippines became a member of the ICC in 2011. It also covers the war on drugs, and “extrajudicial killings [that] appear to have been committed pursuant to an official State policy,” from 2016 to 2019 only. This limited period is because Duterte’s withdrawal from the ICC became effective in March 2019.
This means that the Barayuga killing does not fall within ICC’s scope. But the DDS, the drug war infrastructure, the killing of drug lords in Dapecol, as well as the killing of Kerwin’s father, former Albuera, Leyte mayor Rolando Espinosa, inside jail in November 2016, are within ICC’s purview.
All these incidents form part of the criminal theory of crimes against humanity under Duterte, which is what the ICC is exploring.
“[The DOJ] will only investigate and prosecute perpetrators who pulled the trigger and mid-level conspirators who relayed the orders to kill. There is no statement made that they will investigate if there is a crime against humanity committed because there was a policy to implement extrajudicial killing as a solution to the drug problem,” said Joel Butuyan, a human rights lawyer who represents some drug war victims, and an ICC-accredited counsel.
“There is no statement made that they will investigate Rodrigo Duterte, Christopher “Bong” Go, and Ronald Dela Rosa as masterminds of all the killings, despite the very clear evidence in this regard, in the testimonies of Garma, Espenido, and Kerwin Espinosa,” said Butuyan.
Butuyan was referring to an earlier testimony of Police Lieutenant Colonel Jovie Espenido, the previous poster boy of the drug war, calling the PNP “the biggest crime group in this country.”
Some of the details in Garma’s affidavit also corroborates the testimony of self-confessed DDS hitman Arturo Lascañas, who has been given limited immunity by the ICC.
Garma said Duterte called her in May 2016 asking for someone who could run the Davao model on a national scale, that person being Leonardo later on. Lascañas said that in the first week of July 2016, their DDS boss in Davao City, also a policeman who’s been relaying Duterte’s alleged kill orders since as early as 1988, asked him to assemble a team of 5-6 people to be deployed in Metro Manila. Lascañas said he was told to coordinate with Go and Leonardo.
However, it remains vague how the Philippines will cooperate with the ICC investigation. For one, Bersamin reiterated Monday, October 14, that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr will not return the country to the ICC. “Based on this, the president is not expected to change his mind and now refer the quad comm matter to the ICC,” said Bersamin.
Following this presidential policy, the quad committee is refusing to provide official documents to human rights lawyers who want to forward it to the ICC. But Barbers had already said before that all its hearings are open source. ICC can sometimes rely on open source information, as it had before.
“ICC can take cognizance. The ICC can even summon Garma or interview her by electronic means,” said Chel Diokno, a human rights lawyer who also represents drug war victims.
Diokno’s FLAG (Free Legal Assistance Group) and Butuyan’s Center for International Law (CenterLaw) are the two petitioners in a still pending Supreme Court case seeking to declare the war on drugs unconstitutional.
Will it affect complementarity?
In the ICC design, if local justice is working, the court in The Hague will lose jurisdiction. The principle of complementarity is also crucial in the ICC, so there are concerns that any movement in a local case will stop the ICC proceedings.
“The pending SC case is not a criminal prosecution so I don’t think it will affect complementarity,” said Diokno.
Even if the Supreme Court takes cognizance of the quad committee testimonies, Butuyan said “it does not involve a prosecution for crime against humanity against the masterminds of the extrajudicial killings, which is within the jurisdiction of the ICC.”
Conti pointed out that after the ICC appeals chamber decided in July 2023, to resume the investigation, the case is at a point where “the issue of complementarity and jurisdiction are not in question before the court.”
“They can proceed with investigation according to the status quo,” said Conti.
– Rappler.com
