MANILA (2nd UPDATE) — President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. on Friday said the Philippines was studying a possible return to the International Criminal Court, which is looking into the previous Duterte administration's war on drugs.

"Should we return under the fold of the ICC? So that is again under study. So we’ll just keep looking at it and see what our options are," Marcos told reporters.

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The President was responding to media questions on House resolutions urging the government to cooperate with the ICC's investigation on the anti-narcotics campaign started by former president Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 and continued under Marcos.

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The House resolutions were "not unusual," said the President.

"They (lawmakers) are just expressing or manifesting the sense of the House that perhaps it is time to allow or to cooperate with the ICC investigations," Marcos said.

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He said it was important to resolve questions on ICC's jurisdiction over the country.

The Philippines pulled out of the ICC in 2019, some three years before the drug war inquiry was resumed.

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"If you are talking about the jurisdiction of the ICC especially since that we have withdrawn from the Rome Statute few years back, that brings into question whether or not this is actually possible," Marcos said.

But he reiterated that it was not right for foreign bodies to dictate on the Philippines who should be investigated or arrested.

"Hindi naman siguro tama yun. Dapat Pilipino lang ang gumagawa niyan. May pulis naman tayo, may [National Bureau of Investigation] tayo, may [Department of Justice] tayo. Kaya nila ang trabahong yan, and that's really where the conflict is," he said.

The Marcos administration previously shunned the ICC probe, with the President himself saying that the court had "no jurisdiction" in the Philippines and that its investigation was a "threat to our sovereignty."

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Vice President Sara Duterte on Thursday urged House lawmakers to respect Marcos Jr.'s statement in July that the Philippines was "done talking with the ICC."

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The House resolution urging cooperation with the ICC was tackled on first reading on Tuesday and referred to the Committee on Justice, which would then recommend a course of action to the whole House.

The development followed tensions between the Duterte family and the House led by Speaker Martin Romualdez over the 2024 budget.

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REACTIONS

In an interview on ANC, former senator Leila de Lima said the ICC should be allowed in the country to probe the drug war killings.

De Lima also described the House resolutions as a "laudable initiative."

"My position has always been: we should rejoin the Rome Statute or the ICC and debunk the previous position of the former president Duterte that unilaterally withdrew our country from the ICC," she said.

The former justice secretary added that the Marcos administration should respect the provisions of the Rome Statute, which created the ICC.

"The withdrawal of the membership from the Rome Statute did not absolutely prevent or block or cooperation with the ICC," she said.

"This is but right that there is such moves for us to rejoin ICC and for the government authorities to fully cooperate because we are bound by that provision of the ICC even if we are no longer a member of the ICC," she added.

Salvador Panelo, Duterte's former chief presidential legal counsel, said Marcos Jr's latest statement was just "a courteous and diplomatic response to the the said House resolution."

"As President of the Republic and Head of State, PBBM is the Chief Architect of foreign policy. Having made repeated pronouncements on the absence of jurisdiction by the ICC over our country, it behooves the legislature as another branch of government to support the official position of the President," said Panelo.

"To do otherwise is to undermine the authority of the President and present to the outside world that the two branches of our government are at war with each other," he added.

Some 6,000 people were killed in police anti-drug operations during Duterte's term, official government figures show, but ICC prosecutors estimate the death toll at between 12,000 and 30,000.

Opened in 2002, the ICC is the world's only permanent court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and aims to prosecute the worst abuses when national courts are unable or unwilling.

— With a report from Agence France-Presse

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