IN A TELEVISED address to the nation last May 31, President Rodrigo Duterte said that he cannot allow the release of all the records relative to the nationwide war on drugs that he began upon assumption to office in 2016.
He said this after the Department of Justice itself commenced an investigation into the “nanlaban” narrative that is the oft-repeated defense made by law enforcement when dead bodies turn up in the course of anti-drug operations.
The President made this declaration exactly one week after Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda secretly submitted her non-redacted recommendation for the pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court to formally authorize an investigation into the “situation” of the Philippines.
After Fatou’s redacted public recommendation was finally published upon her retirement last June 15, President Duterte reacted by calling the ICC “bullshit” and threatening to slap its judges.
“Itong ICC bullshit ito. Why would I defend or face an accusation before white people? You must be crazy… Sampalin ko yung mga judges dyan, eh loko-loko kayo. You want my country to go down the drain,” he said in another televised dialogue with the people.
The Department of Foreign Affairs was also compelled to issue a tepid statement lamenting Fatous’ request for authorization to investigate alleged crimes against humanity in the Philippines.
The DFA said that the inter-agency review panel headed by the Secretary of Justice was created to reinvestigate cases involving fatalities in the campaign against illegal drugs, and that “said panel is continuing its work, and should be allowed to finish its work.”
What is fact, however, is that the DOJ has received records for only a handful of these nanlaban cases. Not even a hundred. That is less than half a percent of the seven thousand or so deaths in the course of police operations. This is not counting the more than ten thousand cardboard or vigilante killings that left the streets swathed in red at the height of the drug war.
It is certainly strange that the prosecutorial arm of government, the DOJ, has zero access to the records of all of these homicides and has to formally request the PNP to be given access. How can the PNP now react to such a request when no less than the commander-in-chief himself has outlawed the access as a threat to national security?
Is this also a signal to the Solicitor General who has so far hedged on his duty to provide records to the Supreme Court where petitions had been filed to question the legality of Oplan Double Barrel and tokhang operations?
The President’s raw bravado and the DFA’s diplomatic legalese both point to the same defense, i.e., that the Philippines is a sovereign state with a fully functioning judicial system and must therefore be free from foreign intervention in processing all these drug killings.
But the judiciary is just one pillar of the criminal justice system in the Philippines. There are five prominent pillars: law enforcement, prosecution, judiciary, penology, and community.
Law enforcement is a highly critical pillar because investigation of crimes and gathering of evidence is what gets the ball rolling in the prosecution and trial of these cases. Nothing will move without law enforcement having performed this duty of protecting the peace by investigating the malefactors.
Prosecutors may not file indictments in court without evidence. Empty accusations face nothing but the waste bin of dismissals. Courts of law are not proactive and cannot on their own investigate and prosecute these cases. They do not act unless cases are brought before them and actually prosecuted by the DOJ or the Ombudsman.
Clearly, it is not enough for government to say that the court system is not working here. If at all, the President’s insistence to keep the records secret may be further argument for the ICC to assert jurisdiction to try and decide the accusation of crimes against humanity./PN
