Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano thumbed down on Tuesday beliefs that the International Criminal Court (ICC) is higher than local courts, appealing in return for the Philippine government to have faith in its own criminal justice system.
With this view, Cayetano, in an ambush interview, said if a warrant of arrest against Sen. Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa from the ICC comes out, the ‘final arbiter’ must be the local courts.
‘We are the most pitiful in the entire world if Filipinos can easily be surrendered abroad, with no courts to go to,’ said Cayetano.
During the interview, Cayetano was also asked how an international court would submit to a local court.
‘It doesn’t work that way. That’s completely wrong. An international court is not higher than a local court. In fact, many local sovereign courts are higher than an international court. In fact, your local (courts) need to allow the international ones – that’s why you can withdraw from the treaty,’ said Cayetano.
The senator then appealed to the Philippine government to trust the country’s own justice system and its courts.
‘I think the main advice should really be to our leaders, which is to have faith in the Philippine criminal justice system, have faith in our courts,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Cayetano said he has yet to talk to dela Rosa.
Dela Rosa is facing charges of crimes against humanity in relation to the role he played at the time of former president Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody drug war.
As Duterte’s former top cop, dela Rosa was the one who issued Command Memorandum Circular No. 16-2016 when he assumed the position of Philippine National Police chief.
The memo was the basis for Project Double Barrel, which started Duterte’s war on drugs, which was later dubbed as Oplan Tokhang.
A day after Duterte’s arrest on March 11, dela Rosa broke his silence, saying he was ‘ready to join’ Duterte in The Hague and ‘take care’ of the former president.
‘If all legal remedies are exhausted and still justice is to no avail, then I don’t want my family to suffer from cops looking for a heartbeat. I am ready to join the old man, hoping that they would allow me to take care of him,’ dela Rosa said then.