President Rodrigo Duterte’s chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo (File photo from Philippine Daily Inquirer)
The Philippines doesn’t need the International Criminal Court (ICC), Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said on Tuesday.
“It feels right to be out of jurisdiction of ICC,” Panelo told lawyers and students at a legal forum on the ICC withdrawal at the Bonifacio Global City campus of the University of the Philippines.
Panelo’s remark came a few days after the Philippines formally informed the United Nations (UN) of its withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the treaty that founded the ICC.
“If the ICC was drafted so we can prosecute leaders who violate human rights, did we need the ICC to oust Mr. Marcos? Did we need the ICC to jail Mr. Estrada? Did we need ICC to have Edsa Revolution?”
Panelo was referring to former Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada.
Panelo, who first made the announcement that President Rodrigo Duterte had ordered the pullout from the ICC, stressed that the withdrawal was simply a form of courtesy.
“The withdrawal simply is a courtesy because we signed it. We’re telling them we’re not bound by it,” he said.
According to him, the Philippines is not bound by the one-year effectivity of the withdrawal, a stipulation in the statute, because the treaty “was not enforcible.“
In past speeches, Duterte pointed out that the Rome Treaty had not been published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines as required by domestic laws. /atm