Metro Manila, Philippines – For Vice President Sara Duterte, the extrajudicial killings (EJK) during the administration of her father, Rodrigo Duterte, could be attributed to high incidents of gun violence.
Duterte told this to her supporters at a rally outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) premises in The Hague, Netherlands on Wednesday, July 29. Political blogger and Office of the Vice President partner Paulo Lino Canillo Te livestreamed the speech on Facebook.
To stress her point, Duterte posed a hypothetical scenario involving her husband, Mans Carpio, and supposed mistress.
“I have a husband, my husband has a mistress, I can hire a gunman for ₱5,000 to kill the mistress, for ₱5,000. That is how bad gun violence in the Philippines is, if that is again, yes EJK,” the vice president told her supporters.
Duterte – who has been impeached for grave threats for allegedly hiring a hitman to kill the presidential family, among other charges – said the ICC could not prove its case against her father. The former president is under ICC arrest for crimes against humanity for murder during his administration’s war on drugs.
“The implementation of a program, whether it was good or bad, is not a crime against humanity, it may be good governance or bad governance, it is the same with how President Marcos is running the country right now,” Duterte said.
“They cannot even say right now if the victims are truly victims of the drug war because gun violence is so common in the Philippines,” she continued.
She said that the victims of the drug war and their bereaved families, including the complainants in the ICC case, may be victims of other crimes.
“It can be that it is a crime against passion, it can be murder because of a third party in a relationship. It can be plain holdap [holdup]. So how can they say now that all the victims there are victims of the drug war that is supposed to be a crime against humanity,” said Duterte.
Official government figures placed the number of drug suspects killed during the Duterte drug war at around 6,200, while some human rights groups estimate it at between 12,000 and 30,000.
The vice president also accused the ICC of subservience to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and former Senator Antonio Trillanes, a vocal Duterte critic.
Citing the claims of the 18 ex-bodyguards of flood control figure Zaldy Co, the vice president said Trillanes received cash to bribe the ICC. The Department of Justice has since approved a recommendation to charge the 18 witnesses with perjury and cyberlibel.
“How do we characterize Trillanes and Marcos in relation to ICC?” she asked her supporters.
In a livestream of the rally, the crowd can be heard in the background shouting: “Traitors!”
“Yes, they are traitors to the Filipinos and to the country but more than that, ang ICC ay tuta ni [the ICC is a lackey of] Trillanes at ni [and] Marcos because the ICC has no other case except for the case of President Rodrigo Duterte and they found what? And they found Marcos, Trillanes, and money in the Philippine case,” she said.
The ICC is an international tribunal founded in 2002 under the Rome Statute with 125 member countries. The Philippines withdrew as a member of the court in 2019.
‘A violent mind’
Palace press officer Claire Castro shut down Duterte’s allegations.
“Useless, baseless, nonsense,” she said on Thursday, July 30, adding that Duterte may have said this out of frustration over the impeachment trial.
For House prosecution spokesperson Terry Ridon, Duterte’s statements point to her mental state.
“I think the vice president has a violent mind. She’s being prosecuted today on threats. The last thing I think any person being investigated on threats to do would be to talk about threats,” said Ridon.
He also questioned if ₱5,000 was the price she paid when she allegedly hired a hitman to kill Marcos, First Lady Liza-Araneta Marcos, and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez.
He also said that the evidence of EJK victims in the ICC case against the former president was “very documented” and not just a byproduct of high crime rates.
