Enrile won’t recognize ICC jurisdiction, wants drug war probers arrested if they come to PH

Chief presidential legal counsel Juan Ponce Enrile (INQUIRER file photo)

MANILA, Philippines — s

“I’m telling you, as a lawyer of the President, as far as I’m concerned, I will not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. They have no sovereign power over us,” he told reporters in an interview.

“If they will come here, if I were to be followed, I will cause their arrest. They interfere too much in our internal affairs,” Enrile added.

Enrile said the ICC must ask permission for their investigators to enter the country.

“I will not allow them to come here in the country to investigate here. They have to ask permission,” he said.

The chief presidential legal counsel issued the remarks after the ICC pre-trial chamber granted its prosecutor’s request to resume the investigation of the Philippines’ bloody war on drugs.

The ICC said it is “not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the Court’s investigations based on the complementarity principle.”

It added that the Philippine government’s efforts to probe the drug war deaths “do not amount to tangible, concrete and progressive investigative steps” that sufficiently mirror the ICC investigation.

In response, Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla called the ICC’s decision to continue its probe an “irritant.”

He also insisted that the Philippines has a functional justice system and vowed to prevent the ICC from imposing upon the country.

Enrile, who is a lawyer and served as a Senate President,  said former President Duterte did not violate the law when he ordered a crackdown against drug peddlers and users.

“He is acting under the country’s Constitution to enforce the law. That is his oath,” he said.

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