On Sept. 23, Rodrigo Duterte, or Gongdi, will face the confirmation of charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC) trial court in its head office in The Hague, The Netherlands. The Philippines does not have this kind of proceedings in its legal system. Some lawyers liken it to what is called “arraignment” part of our court proceedings.
In this confirmation of charges public hearing, Gongdi will be confronted with the nature of charges he is facing before the ICC. The prosecution witnesses will be presented. He will be allowed to present his witnesses too.
After the presentation of their respective witnesses, the ICC will decide if a trial will be held. During this confirmation of charges, Gongdi, through his lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, can ask for interim liberty, although this is not given much thought because of the sheer magnitude of his bloody but ill fated war of drugs, where some 30, 000 persons were reported murdered.
Arturo Lascanas, a retired police officer and insider of the so-called “Duterte Death Squad” (DDS), who has turned against Gongdi, looms to become a “star witness,” if ever the ICC decides to hold a trial against him. Lascanas has been in an undisclosed country in Europe with his family.
Sonny Trillanes and Gary Alejano filed the charges of crimes against humanity against Gongdi. Their group, the Samahang Magdalo, vetted Lascanas and helped him and his family to relocate to Europe to become a witness against Gongdi.
This author wrote certain developments that could mean a lot to the forthcoming confirmation of charges hearing. Please read:
ON the balmy evening of Feb. 15, 2024, retired SPO4 Arturo Lascanas appeared in Christian Esguerra’s “Facts First” podcast and made astonishing revelations on the crimes against humanity charges against Duterte and ilk. Lascanas is widely described as the “insider” of the “Davao Death Squad,” (DDS), Duterte’s reputed liquidation squad. His appearance in Esguerra’s podcast somehow confirmed that the crimes against humanity charges against Duerte and ilk are on live file, or moving. They have not been archived.
Lascanas turned against him. First, he issued an eight –page affidavit against Duterte in 2017. But after the affidavit came out in public, he disappeared with his family and settled in an undisclosed European country, where he intends to appear as a witness against Duterte if ever a court trial is to be called by the ICC.
In the one and a half long podcast interview, Lascanas made the disclosures:
First, aside from the eight-page affidavit in 2017, and the 188-page expanded affidavit in 2020, he authored in 2021 a “200-page plus supplemental handwritten affidavit,” which he submitted to the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor headed by Karim Khan.
Second, the ICC held sometime in 2022 in an undisclosed place at least four days of pretrial session, where he submitted his testimonies to comprise part of the body of evidence against Duterte and ilk, and the ICC named Uruguayan lawyer Pedro Ferreira as Lascanas’s probono lawyer and an unnamed American lawyer for Duterte.
Third, Lascanas confirmed he was given in 2020 what he described as “limited immunity,” saying he stands to face court charges if ever he is proven to have committed perjury, or false statement under oath.
Lascanas said that whatever he has disclosed before the ICC would stand against Duterte even if Lascanas dies or gets injured. Furthermore, he revealed that the ICC was nurturing him to be its “star witness” against Duterte and his cohorts since he was the DDS insider, who came forward to reveal what he knew about the illicit crime group.
Lascanas along with Edgar Matabato, the functionally illiterate self-confessed DDS hit man, have revealed publicly the modus operandi of the DDS.
According to Lascanas, he was a witness in the death of at least 400 persons, who fell victims to EJKs in Davao City. Of this figure, he pulled the trigger in at least 200 cases. He claimed to have been bothered by his conscience on what he did. His turning point of conversion came when Duterte ordered and the DDS killed his two brothers ,Cecilio and Fernando, for being drug users.
Rodrigo Duterte is not the only public official to be prosecuted by the ICC. Also included are Bato dela Rosa, Bong Go, Sara Duterte, and PNP officials, who were involved in Duterte’s bloody but failed war on drugs. Lascanas claimed in the podcast that it was then Davao City Mayor and now Vice President Sara Duterte, who ordered dela Rosa and other PNP officials to bring the targets of the war on drugs (drug addicts and pushers) to the three hidden quarries in Davao City to execute them and bury their bodies there. This was to make it appear that the targets were just “missing,” not executed summarily.
In the podcast, Lascanas called Sara Duterte as the “mother of tokhang” because she was involved in Duterte’s war on drugs in Davao City. Lascanas claimed about 3,000 bodies were buried at the Laud Quarry; 70 in Maa; and 50 in Mandug. The bodies have likely remained buried there, he said. They could be exhumed any time to be presented before the ICC as pieces of evidence.
Lascanas said in his interview with Esguerra that he submitted in 2021 to the ICC the 188-page “computerized” affidavit, where he revealed all that he knew as an ‘insider” of the Davao Death Squad (DDS) of Duterte. He also issued the “200 plus page handwritten affidavit,”which stressed that Duterte was the primary state official, who ordered and implemented the war on drugs primarily based on widespread extrajudicial killings (EJKs).
Lascanas disagreed with Esguerra’s suggestion for him to participate in the court proceedings should state prosecutors bring Duterte and his co-accused to local courts. “Walang hustisya sa Filipinas except ICC, (There’s no justice in local courts except in ICC),” he said. He claimed he went out publicly to oppose his war on drugs because had realized it was a “fake drug war.” He claimed Duterte did not only order the murder of drug pushers and addicts but also his political opponents as well. He ordered the murder of Duterte’s supposed friends for no apparent reason. Meanwhile, Duterte helped known drug lords to escape arrest and prosecution.
In his estimate, Lascanas said over 10,000 persons were killed in his bloody but failed war on drugs. The bodies of many victims were never found or recovered, he said. The DDS later metamorphosed to become a “kidnap for ransom” gang, he claimed. He claimed instances when the DDS collected ransom money from the families of their victims and divided it among themselves.
Lascanas cited the case of a certain Danny Ong, a Davao City-based businessman, who was kidnapped. He claimed Ong died at the hands of his captors despite his family paying P5 million. The same fate fell on a certain Allan Yap, whose family, he claimed, paid them P5 million too. Lascanas claimed that the family of a certain Philip Lam paid them P10 million after he was kidnapped. Duterte, he said, used the money to pay the police officers involved in their kidnapping and murder. That kept them quiet.
“Galante si Duterte (Duterte is extravagant),” Lascanas claimed. This was among the reasons why DDS persisted. Lascanas could not say when the ICC arrest warrant would be served against Duterte. He said the ICC gave him a probono lawyer, the Uruguayan Pedro Ferreira, to help him in his cases against Duterte. He has been assisting him in the crimes against humanity charges against Duterte.
The limited immunity the ICC gave him since 2020 means the ICC could run after him if he gives false testimonies under oath. It also means the ICC could file a case against him and he faces arrest ahd imprisonment, he clarified. This is the ICC ‘s way to ensure that a witness will only give credible testimonies before the world body.
What Rodrigo Duterte launched in 2016 was a fake drug war. It was long on extrajudicial killings (EJKs) or murders, promises, pronouncements, and threats and intimidations on practically everybody and anybody he fancied. But it was short of its promised goal to eradicate the local drug menace.
By ordering the murder of thousands of hapless citizens on the basis of mere suspicion of being drug addicts and pushers, Duterte did not only weaken the rule of law in the country, but gave unmitigated embarrassment to the country’s democratic institutions like the PNP and the Judiciary.
The PNP stands for peace and order and public safety, while the court dispenses justice. But the PNP was used, while the court was sidelined and intimidated to give way to Duterte’s war on drugs.Duterte violated the law, plain and simple. He violated the Constitution that he had sworn to uphold and defend. He had blood in his hands, as he used the PNP as the main institution to kill thousands of private citizens without due process of law. Yet, he did not want to assume responsibility for what he did. He is afraid to face the consequences of his illegal acts.
The illegal drug issue lingers until now. It remains unabated. Illegal drug trading continues with impunity. Duterte’s war on drugs did not bring tangible results to strengthen our democracy. It did not institutionalize any counter consciousness against illegal drugs. On the contrary, it has only exacerbated the drug menace.
It was Antonio Trillanes IV, a former senator, and the Magdalo Party List that first vetted, initiated, and filed crimes against humanity charges against Duterte and his cohorts before the ICC. The democratic political opposition, as represented by the mainstream Liberal Party and other minor groups, did not help him and the Magdalo Party List Group.
The late Jude Josue Sabio, a lawyer, was hired and paid by the Samahang Magdalo to file the first information before the ICC. It was the intention of Trillanes fot Sabio to provide a protective cover for them at the height of the EJKs. His break with Trillanes was mainly on money issues and not necessarily on ideological or any other ground – political or not.
Leni Robredo, then the vice president and presumptive top opposition leader since she was the highest elected opposition leader at that time, did not help and took distance from Trillanes’s initiative to bring the issue of Duterte’s war on drugs before the international forum, which is the ICC. Other leaders of the democratic opposition were nowhere in sight. In the end, Trillanes sought the help of Alejano.
Trillanes and Alejano used their legislative staff and other Magdalo leaders to build up the first information. They had to rely on the professional competence of lawyer Reynaldo Robles, a pro bono volunteer lawyer, who has been helping Trillanes in his court issues, and the Samahang Magdalo network to study the possibility of filing crimes against humanity charges against Duterte and his ilk.
Sabio’s participation was minimal and it was on the act of filing it before the ICC. According to certain Magdalo stalwarts, it was wrong to believe that Sabio helped in the preparation of the first information. All he did was to provide a protective cover for the people who actually worked on it.
The filing of information by the Samahang Magdalo through Trillanes and Alejano was not its monopoly. The Legal Left did its own filing. They filed its first information 16 months after the Samahang Magdalo filed its first ever information on April 24, 2017. The National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), an organization of lawyers for poor litigants, filed its first information on Aug. 28, 2018. That was at a later date, when the Left’s break with the Duterte government was final and complete.
What the Duterte government and the Left had was an uneasy alliance at the 2016 start of the Duterte administration. They never trusted each other. Duterte hardly reciprocated the pivotal support the Left gave him for his election as president. In the end, Duterte got rid of the left-wing elements in his government.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, in the landmark 2021 decision penned by Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and unanimously concurred by all magistrates, has decided that Duterte did not violate the 1987 Constitution when the latter made the unilateral decision for the Philippines to withdraw its membership in the Rome Statute, the multilateral treaty that has created the International Criminal Court (ICC). Duterte did not consult with leaders of Congress in his unilateral decision.
But the withdrawal decision does not mean that Duterte and his ilk are no longer responsible for the spate of EJKs that took place when the Philippines was a member of the Rome Statute. It does not exculpate them of any responsibility as set forth in the Rome Statute. On the contrary, they have remained responsible for the numerous violations they committed when the Philippines was a member-state of the Rome Statute.
On the contrary, the High Court’s decision binds the government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to enforce the Rome Statute when the Philippines was still a member. It has dropped words that the government has no choice but to turn over Duterte and his co-accused to the ICC, if ever it asks for Duterte and ilk to face prosecution and trial.
The country is no longer an ICC member on March 17, 2019, but it ruled the ICC can investigate the EJKs because they occurred when the country was still a party to the Rome Statute. The ICC probe covers the EJKs committed from Nov. 2011 to March 2019, including the EJKs in Davao City, while Duterte was its mayor and thousands of EJKs that occurred nationwide in his war on drugs.
The Supreme Court decision stressed judicial restraint in the treatment of the unilateral withdrawal of the Philippines from the Rome Statute. But it ensured that the government would have to adhere to the provisions of the Rome Statute, when it was still a member-state. In brief, the withdrawal initiated solely by Duterte in what appeared to be an unpredictable fit of frenzy does not mean outright loss of obligations to the ICC. In what could be considered an iron-clad, black and white part of the Supreme Court decision, the following has to be cited from the SC decision:
“Withdrawing from the Rome Statute does not discharge a state party from the obligations it has incurred as a member. Article 127(2) provides: ‘A State shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this Statute while it was as a Party to the Statute, including any financial obligations which may have accrued. Its withdrawal shall not affect any cooperation with the Court in connection with criminal investigations and proceedings in relation to which the withdrawing State had a duty to cooperate and which were commenced prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective, nor shall it prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.’
“A state party withdrawing from the Rome Statute must still comply with this provision. Even if it has deposited the instrument of withdrawal, it shall not be discharged from any criminal proceedings. Whatever process was already initiated before the International Criminal Court obliges the state party to cooperate.
“Until the withdrawal took effect on March 17, 2019, the Philippines was committed to meet its obligations under the Rome Statute. Any and all governmental acts up to March 17, 2019 may be taken cognizance of by the International Criminal Court.
“Further, as petitioners in G.R. No. 239483 underscored: [U]nder this reverse complementarity provision in [Republic Act No. 9851, the Preliminary Examination opened by the [International Criminal Court] on the President’s drug war is not exactly haram (to borrow a word used in Islam to mean any act forbidden by the Divine). Assuming such a [Preliminary Examination] proceeds . . . when Art. 18 (3) of the Rome Statute comes into play, [Republic Ad No. 9851 may be invoked as basis by Philippine authorities to defer instead to the [International Criminal Court] in respect of any investigation on the same situation.
“Consequently, liability for the alleged summary killings and other atrocities committed in the course of the war on drugs is not nullified or negated here. The Philippines remained covered and bound by the Rome Statute until March 17, 2019.”
Hence, the Supreme Court dismissed the claim that the unilateral withdrawal of Philippine membership from the Rome Statute “violated their right to be provided with ample remedies for the protection of their right to life and security.” This is baseless, according to the High Court. “This fear of imagined diminution of legal remedies must be assuaged. The Constitution, which embodies our fundamental rights, was in no way abrogated by the withdrawal. A litany of statutes that protect our rights remain in place and enforceable,” it said.
This is a matter that Duterte and cohorts have had a hard time understanding. Even their purported lawyers do not understand this issue either. They have kept on insisting that the withdrawal of the Philippines from the Rome Statute has extinguished outright their liability or responsibility from the Rome Statute. Hence, they have insisted the ICC has no power to run after them. This oversimplistic view and interpretation is false, by all means.
The Supreme Court has laid down the consequences if ever a state like the Philippines refuses to cooperate with the ICC in its probes.The operative phrase is “full cooperation.” The ICC has the power to employ ways to ensure the personal safety of victims. This is a matter that Duterte, cohorts and lawyers have not seen or understood.
