Duterte could face trial before int’l court for drug killings

The ongoing orgy of extralegal drug killings has become quite alarming and a cause for serious concern. President Duterte takes pride in the seeming success of his war on drugs and is constantly prodding the Philippine National Police to accelerate the killings. In his first State of the Nation Address, President Duterte said in substance that we should not let human rights destroy our nation.

As a lawyer, I have always believed that human rights are what make us “human” and “civilized,” the protection of which we should guard with vigilance. The summary execution of drug suspects without trial is akin to the slaughter of Indonesian “communists” during the time of President Suharto, which has been characterized as a “genocide.”

The extralegal killing of drug suspects on an ever-increasing scale, with the apparent acquiescence of most of the people and lawmakers (with the exception of the feisty and courageous Sen. Leila de Lima), gives the impression to the public, both here and abroad, that we are running amok.

President Duterte may have the best intentions in the world in waging his drug war, but as a lawyer he ought to know he must respect human rights and that he cannot take legal shortcuts. The killings cannot be justified on the ground that the suspects are “resisting arrest” because, as a matter of law, a suspect has the right to resist arrest if the police officer has no warrant of arrest. Indeed, even assuming that the suspect is guilty and there is overwhelming evidence to prove it, killing him is not legally defensible because we even have no death penalty for a convicted felon.

As the legal counsel of the Melo Commission that investigated the extralegal killings during the term of President Gloria Arroyo, I know that the commission in its report recommended the criminal prosecution of Gen. Jovito Palparan who ordered the killing of a great number of activists because they were suspected of being “NPAs.” The commission also warned Arroyo that she could be held criminally liable based on the doctrine of command responsibility, in the same manner that President Ferdinand Marcos was held by a US court liable to the human rights victims.

As stated by lawyer Joel Ruiz Butuyan in his column (“Extrajudicial killings as crime against humanity,” Opinion, 8/15/16), “The last thing our country needs is a President facing trial at the International Criminal Court.”

—ROGELIO A. VINLUAN, [email protected]