By Arjay L. Balinbin

President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Sunday, March 18, said he will urge other member countries to withdraw from the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“I will convince everybody now under the treaty, get out. Bastos ’yan…(They are disrespectful),” Mr. Duterte said, addressing this year’s graduates of the Philippine Military Academy at Fort General Gregorio Del Pilar in Baguio City.

“The treaty, if you read it, it’s all bull….It is not a document that was prepared by anybody. It’s an EU-sponsored [document]. These people went to Africa to kill the Arabs there; and here in the Philippines, the massacre in Marawi. It is really an atonement for their sins,” he added.

Mr. Duterte had also signed, in time for the graduation ceremony, a pardon for cadets who committed “wrongdoings,” as this was announced there.

The President issued a statement last Wednesday, March 14, saying he was having the country withdraw from the Rome Statute, as subsequently formalized in a notice to the United Nations secretary-general.

ICC Prosecutor Fatou B. Bensouda announced on Feb. 8 a preliminary examination into the killings in the Philippines spawned by Mr. Duterte’s drug war.

Mr. Duterte’s spokesman, Herminio Harry L. Roque, Jr., also criticized the ICC last week, saying the President’s decision to withdraw the Philippines from the ICC is “the beginning of the end” for this court because of “an avalanche of other countries” also wanting to withdraw.

“Avalanche talaga? Ok ka lang Mr. Roque? Naka-Fentanyl ka na rin?” Senator Leila M. de Lima said in a statement. (Avalanche, really? Are you okay, Mr. Roque? Are you on Fentanyl too?)

“So far, the only nation that has successfully left the ICC is Burundi,” the detained opposition lawmaker added.

In its website, the ICC said it has a total of “123 member countries, 33 of them are African States, 19 are Asia-Pacific states, 18 are from Eastern Europe, 28 are from Latin American and Caribbean States, and 25 are from Western European and other States.”

“Gambia’s former President Yahya Jammeh withdrew his country from the ICC last October 2016, but his successor President Adama Barrow immediately restored Gambia’s membership in the ICC in February 2017 after his predecessor’s election defeat, thereby ending two decades of repressive rule. South Africa tried to leave under President Jacob Zuma, again unsuccessfully, after its High Court declared that the executive act was unconstitutional without parliamentary approval. Zuma has been removed from office since then and has been charged with corruption just yesterday,” Ms. De Lima explained.

“What is clear is that the heads of state who tried to withdraw from the ICC are those who fear prosecution and trial at the ICC for widespread human rights violations during their reign,” she said further.

As for Burundi, the ICC said its withdrawal took effect on Oct. 27 last year. “The preliminary examination of the situation in Burundi was announced on 25 April 2016. At the time more than 430 persons had reportedly been killed, at least 3,400 people arrested and over 230,000 Burundians forced to seek refuge in neighboring countries,” ICC also noted.

“[T]he Philippines is now Asia’s own Burundi, after the Duterte government announced its withdrawal from the ICC,” Ms. De Lima said.

As for the avalanche of countries leaving the ICC, Ms. De Lima said: “It is precisely the opposite. Countries will be staying put in the ICC because they don’t want to be identified with the Philippine government under Duterte which is now the number one human rights violator in the world.”

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