Why invite the ICC to the Philippines?

THE most ridiculous statement to come out of the Senate over the weekend that we get to read is the one released by Sen. Francis Tolentino saying they have “invited” officials from the International Criminal Court (ICC) “to attend” a yet-to-be-announced inquiry regarding 2 resolutions in the chamber condemning that “corrupt organization” (as former US president Donald Trump describes the ICC).

In the statement that was carried out by the mainstream media on Monday, April 3, 2023, Sen. ‘Tol’ Tolentino said he also plans to invite former president Rody Duterte to the inquiry to be conducted by the Senate Committee on Human Rights that he chaired (aside from the Blue Ribbons Committee). The former president, still highly respected and popular, has been the focus of the ICC’s biased charges due to his campaign against illegal drugs.

When Duterte launched his ‘War on Drugs’ after his election in 2016, the country was already on the brink of joining Mexico and Colombia as ‘Narco States’ and for his effort to save the country from being under the beck and call of drug cartels, the ICC wanted him prosecuted, jailed in a prison we never heard of and the key thrown into the Atlantic Ocean.

I don’t know what the senator from Cavite province was reading these days but not too long ago, in fact, only last March 28, President Marcos Jr. announced that the country is totally “disengaging” from “any contact” with the ICC in view of its glaring arrogance in insisting to indict not only PDU30 but more pointedly, the country’s functioning judicial system even as they are happily trampling our national sovereignty.

The President’s message was very clear: no more official contact with the ICC, except, of course, for the likes of Tolentino who seems to imbibe the American’s sense of “exceptionalism.”

In the eyes of the ICC, we are a people still living on trees not too long ago that the entire world cannot possibly believe that we are already a civilized people with institutions comparable to theirs. What hubris, what arrogance!

If the actual intention of Tolentino is to showcase to the world that, yes, Uncle Sam, we have a functioning democracy and institutions at par with Western standards while giving all the chances for Mayor Rody to defend himself, it is either he is naïve, aiming to grandstand before the world or, regrettably, out of touch with reality.

If he also believes that the Senate shall have “compete control” of the situation once the ICC officials arrive, he is grossly mistaken. Only probinsiyanos think this way and not those aspiring to be called, “statesman.”

For the reality is that, repeatedly, thru then Justice Secretary and now Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra, we have repeatedly made presentations and remonstrations with the ICC. Too, DOJ Secretary Boying Remulla, twice or thrice and for as many as times as necessary, made his own pitch and presentation not only to the ICC but before the international human rights commission as to the existence and functioning of our judicial system. But all their efforts were in vain.

Why? Simply because the ICC has already made up its mind—it wants to see another world leader like Duterte indicted and yes, humiliated, if only to restore some vestiges of its tattered credibility. Remember George Bush Jr. and his destruction of Iraq over the phantom “weapons of mass destruction” of Pres. Saddam Hussein? The comparison is near enough in that all of them have made up their minds. You know, folks, by hook or by crook the Whites want to get what they want.

Of late, the ICC indicted Russian President Vladimir Putin and wants him arrested based on some false “news reports” by the Western Corporate Media and plain lies coming from Ukraine but heck, let us the ICC try their luck on him, haha!

My point is, whatever his real motive or motives for inviting the ICC here, Sen. Tolentino is only giving them the credibility it does not deserve– and did not have to begin with– while assuring them of another platform to ventilate their lies against our country. If only he is alert to what is going on, he should have seen that the ICC’s latest attack on Pres. Putin showed clearly that the ICC is just another Western creation used for coercion and demonization of countries and leaders they do not like.

And in the case of small and weak countries like the Philippines, the ICC is another instrument for the West to gain political, economic and yes, military concessions.

And yes, he would also be putting in peril the Philippine Senate’ own dignity and respect (or what’s left of them) should his hairbrained plan pushes through. Come to think of it folks: the Senate recognizing an already non-entity like the ICC? And even allowing it to shame us here on our own soil?

“Esep-esep” din naman pag may time, hays!