Palace shrugs off IPT’s ‘guilty verdict’ vs Duterte as ‘sham decision’

Malacañang on Thursday dismissed as a mere “sham decision” the recent findings by the International People’s Tribunal (IPT) that found President Rodrigo Duterte guilty of human rights violations.

“That’s a sham decision. It has no official sanction. The validity of the findings will depend on the credibility of the tribunal. I’m in this field of law, I do not  know who sat there,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque told reporters in a Palace briefing.

“They appear to be a propaganda body of the international left and therefore we set it aside as being a useless piece of propaganda against the government,” he added.

The complaint, according to several groups led by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and Karapatan, was presented before the IPT in Brussels, Belgium on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The IPT is a global court convened by the European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and World Human Rights, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, IBON International, and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.

IPT’s decision will be handed out to the United Nations Human Rights Council, the European Parliament, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.  /muf