PRRD ON HIS FATE IN AN ICC PROBE RESUMPTION: SO BE IT
DAVAO CITY—SO be it. This was the statement of outgoing President Duterte in expectation of any outcome of a plan of an International Criminal Court prosecutor to resume investigating the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.
In his speech after the inauguration of his youngest son, Sebastian, as mayor of this city, Duterte said he would face a tribunal to investigate into alleged excesses in the anti-illegal drugs war, which he waged relentlessly in his first three years in power, but which human-rights groups claim needlessly killed thousands of people.
“I am a Filipino and if ever I am prosecuted, so be it,” he said.
However, he laid out conditions on the entire prosecution process: that the prosecutor should be a Filipino and the tribunal must be presided by Filipinos.
And if he ever gets convicted, he said he wants to be sent to the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa “and rot there to kingdom come.”
As in the early days of his anti-illegal drug war campaign that dated back in 1986
when he became mayor, he said he has nothing to wish for than to “clean this city of criminals.”
In random statements to explain the bloody war on drugs, he said he wanted to reclaim the streets from the criminals and make these available to lawabiding citizens.
“You, Dabawenyos, knew why I have to wage this war against drugs,” he said. He recalled this city would always be hounded by reports about drug addicts raping their mother, or their sister or their children.
“Sa panahon ko [In my time], I will not give you an inch,” he said. He insisted he was an equal-opportunity punisher, and he has also exposed the wrongdoing of the rich.