EDITORIAL - Don’t drop the ball

As the nation goes through the annual ritual of remembering the dearly departed this weekend, there may be less mourning in many households. Thanks to recent developments, justice is looking possible for the thousands who were killed by state forces on mere suspicion of involvement in illegal drugs.

In Davao City, a death squad consisting of gangsters was organized apparently by the police and financed with some help from wealthy civilians. This is according to the brains behind the idea himself, former president Rodrigo Duterte. He was under oath when he admitted to the Senate that the Davao death squad was real, after all.

Individual accountability will have to be sorted out, but with Duterte himself claiming principal responsibility for his bloody campaign against illegal drugs, the nation may yet determine if the Davao death squad was expanded nationwide during his presidency, with the Philippine National Police rather than mere “gangsters” and wealthy civilians as the main perpetrators.

Perhaps the families of the thousands who lost their lives in Duterte’s war on drugs may yet find closure. The path to justice, however, has just opened. Lawmakers themselves have said the testimonies given at the congressional hearings, several of them conflicting, will need corroboration and verification. Pieces of material evidence, which are critical in sifting through cases of “he said, she said” could be hard to come by.

After the Senate and the House of Representatives wrap up their probes, formal complaints will have to be filed and indictments brought against the accused perpetrators. They are expected to mount a spirited legal defense against arrest and incarceration, and they have enormous resources for this. This is expected to become the first major case involving violations of Republic Act 9851, the 2009 Philippine Act on Crimes Against International Humanitarian Law, Genocide and Other Crimes Against Humanity.

The International Criminal Court is already way ahead of Philippine prosecutors in pursuing a case of murder as a possible crime against humanity in connection with Duterte’s crackdown on drugs. Whether the ICC will actually acquire jurisdiction over the persons of those under investigation is uncertain. Philippine prosecutors must not leave the job to the ICC, amid all the explosive information emerging from the probes at the House and the Senate. Those in charge of the pillars of criminal justice in the country must not drop the ball. It would be a shame if the findings in the congressional probes are wasted.