Silver lining

What a difference a few months can make in politics in this country.

Only last year in mid-April, President Marcos had said explicitly that his government would not serve a warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the arrest of his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte.

“That’s a no,” BBM said. “We don’t recognize the warrant that they will send to us… We are well within international law when we take the position of not recognizing that jurisdiction of ICC in the Philippines.”

Much earlier, in February 2023, BBM had said he considered the ICC a threat to national sovereignty, that the Philippine legal system is working so he saw no need for the ICC to step in, and he would not cooperate in the ICC probe.

All this, of course, was before the rift between the Dutertes and the Marcos-Romualdez clan erupted into full-blown warfare, complete with threats of assassination.

Last week, the “little president” no less gave the most unequivocal statement yet that the administration is ready to hand over Duterte and his minions to the ICC.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said if the Interpol asked the Philippines to enforce an arrest warrant issued by the ICC, the government would “act favorably, positively.”

*      *      *

Since the breakup of the vaunted UniTeam, the Marites network has been buzzing with stories that the Marcos 2.0 administration was ready to hand over Duterte and his former top aides – and possibly, down the line, even his daughter the Vice President and former Davao City mayor – to the ICC.

The only question was how to go about it, without the country rejoining the ICC. BBM had said in late 2023 that rejoining the Rome Statute was “under study.” There has been no word so far on the final outcome of that study.

BBM, whose handling of foreign policy is one of his strongest points, is probably inclined to have the country rejoin the ICC. But the move can’t look like it is meant mainly to nail down Duterte and his minions.

Last year, his officials showed a possible way to hand over the former president and his aides to the ICC without the Philippines rejoining the Rome Statute: any arrest warrant can be coursed through the International Criminal Police Organization.

If the Interpol requests the Philippines, a member state, for help in enforcing an arrest warrant, the country is bound by comity to grant the request, which must be carried out by the Philippine National Police (PNP).

In August last year, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla said “we are not in the business of blocking Interpol’s job.”

Administration officials, however, stressed at the time that the government was not cooperating with the ICC following the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute.

Last week, even this stance softened further, as Remulla said the government is now open to cooperating with the ICC, and is ready to sit down with ICC probers to explore possible ways of going about it even if the country has withdrawn from the Rome Statute.

Remulla also confirmed reports that ICC probers have been going in and out of the country for some time now, although their work is informal.

There was in fact speculation that Marcos 2.0 had allowed self-confessed Davao Death Squad hitman Edgar Matobato to leave the country last year. A New York Times report said Matobato used a fake identity and fake passport. An accompanying photo showed him pulling a suitcase at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport where he boarded a Dubai-bound flight.

Former senator Leila de Lima said Matobato is now in the care of the ICC.

Government officials denied looking the other way to allow Matobato to go to the ICC, whose headquarters in The Hague is located just across the Interpol HQ.

The Bureau of Immigration, which is under Remulla’s department, said it is investigating the circumstances of Matobato’s departure, which of course was not recorded in the BI database because he used fraudulent travel documents.

*      *      *

Bersamin gave the comment about “favorable, positive” action on an Interpol request when asked about Remulla’s latest statements.

Previous reports have said the ICC would issue arrest warrants for Duterte, his first PNP chief and Oplan Tokhang architect Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, his second PNP chief Oscar Albayalde and three other former police officers – Romeo Caramat Jr., Edilberto Leonardo and Eleazar Mata.

Leonardo resigned as commissioner of the National Police Commission after he was implicated by former police colonel and sweepstakes general manager Royina Garma in an alleged quota and reward system for executing drug suspects when Duterte was president.

Garma, who also tagged Sen. Bong Go as the alleged paymaster in the quota system, is accused together with Leonardo of being the brains in the assassination of former sweepstakes board secretary Wesley Barayuga, allegedly to prevent him from spilling the beans on corruption in the agency. Go has denied Garma’s story.

Duterte himself, facing the Senate and then the House quad committee, provided gruesome details about his bloody campaign against drugs and criminality when he was president and earlier as Davao City mayor.

*      *      *

We wouldn’t be learning about these horrific details, and the government wouldn’t be preparing to hand over Duterte and his minions to the ICC, if the UniTeam hadn’t come apart.

Without the breakup, we also wouldn’t be learning about the scandalous misuse and misappropriation of billions in public funds for personal and partisan purposes – first by Vice President and former education chief Sara Duterte, and now by most members of both chambers of Congress.

It is dismaying that nearly all senators and the super majority in the House went along with this misappropriation of people’s money on an epic scale.

This is a betrayal of public trust, and the amounts involved should warrant the indictment of all of them for plunder, with no bail allowed even for humanitarian reasons. Ordinary government employees have been convicted and sent to prison for much less.

Sadly, it’s true that if you want to steal and get away with it in this country, you have to steal on a large scale.

Punishment for the large-scale looters is iffy. But reforms start from the exposure of wrongdoing. This at least is a silver lining in the ongoing warfare between the folks who used to be as thick as thieves.