(Eagle News) — Former Akbayan party-list Rep. Barry Gutierrez will represent the opposition senators who filed a petition against the Philippines’ planned withdrawal from the International Criminal Court before the Supreme Court.
Gutierrez formally entered his appearance as counsel for Senators Kiko Pangilinan, Bam Aquino, Leila de Lima, Risa Hontiveros and Antonio Trillanes IV after the High Court denied De Lima’s appeal she be allowed to represent herself and her co-petitioners in the oral arguments which began on Tuesday, Aug. 28.
Her co-petitioners also filed separate motions for reconsideration but these were also denied by the Supreme Court.
Oral arguments on the petition will resume next Tuesday, September 4.
Apart from the senators’ petition, the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court led by former Commission on Human Rights chairperson Loretta Ann Rosales filed a similar petition.
On March 14, President Rodrigo Duterte announced the Philippines’ withdrawal of its ratification of the Rome Statute, a United Nations treaty creating the ICC which the Philippines signed on Dec. 28, 2000, and ratified on August 30, 2011.
On March 15, the Permanent Mission of the Republic of the Philippines to the UN wrote UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to formally notify the body of the country’s withdrawal as a “principled stand against those who politicize and weaponize human rights, even as its independent and well-functioning organs and agencies continue to exercise jurisdiction over complaints, issues, problems and concerns arising from its efforts to protect its people.” With reports from Meanne Corvera, Moira Encina and PNA
