(Eagle News)—Senator Richard Gordon on Sunday, April 15, said President Rodrigo Duterte has every right to order the arrest of International Criminal Court prosecutors should they come to the country.
“As far as the President is concerned, he has the right to protect the country. Kapag ang mga ito ay gagawa lang ng hindi mabuti, dine-destabilize ang bayan natin, he has that right,” Gordon said in a radio interview.
He also agreed with Duterte’s position the Philippines should pull out from the International Criminal Court.
He said being a member of the ICC would lead to the “diminution” of the country’s sovereignty, as foreigners come to the country to investigate alleged crimes committed.
If there was anyone who should explain the number of killed in the drug war, he said it was the police.
He said it was right then for the Supreme Court to demand for drug war reports.
The Philippine National Police has said it would defer to the Solicitor General on the matter.
At a press briefing on Friday, Duterte maintained that the ICC has no jurisdiction on the communication filed by lawyer Jude Sabio in April last year.
He said the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, is not enforceable in the Philippines as it was not published in the government’s publication or commercial newspaper.
“Kaya ikaw Ms. Fatou (ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda), ‘wag kang pumunta dito because I will bar you. Not because I am afraid of you, I said, because you will never have jurisdiction over my person, not in a million years,” Duterte said in a press conference on Friday, April 13.
He said the Rome Statute, which establishes the ICC, cannot be enforced in the Philippines because it was not published in a newspaper of general circulation as required by the law.