Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa has vowed to confront the International Criminal Court (ICC) which plans to investigate the drug war of the Duterte administration.
He committed not to inhibit in the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights hearing on a Senate resolution that aims to oppose the plan of the ICC to look into the extrajudicial killings on the drug war of the previous administration.
Aside from former President Rodrigo Duterte, Dela Rosa, then the Philippine National Police (PNP) is also a respondent to the ICC hearing.
According to Dela Rosa, he will attend the hearing chaired by Sen. Francis Tolentino in order to confront his accusers- prosecutors from the ICC if they will attend the hearing virtually or teleconferencing.
Dela Rosa said he sees nothing wrong if he confronts the ICC. He will merely ask the prosecutors- incumbent ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan and his predecessor in the ICC, Fatou Bensouda why they have been “insisting on meddling” in the previous administration’s drug war while all local courts are functioning well and conducting their own probe in the same issue.
He said he also wants to tell the ICC that they are violating the Rome Statute on interfering in the country’s criminal mustice system.
The Rome Statute, a treaty created by the ICC, provides that the ICC can conduct an investigation if the justice system in a country-signatory is not working.
Earlier, Tolentino said it has invited to the hearing the ICC to attend virtually.
The hearing is set on Wednesday, 3 pm. which is 10 am in The Netherlands.
