Miriam vs. Pacquiao

On Aug. 16, 2011, the late senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, then chairperson of the Senate committee on foreign relations, delivered in the Senate halls a speech pushing for the passage of Senate Resolution No. 546 calling for the ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which she described as “perhaps the most innovative and exciting development in international law since the creation of the United Nations.”

The move capped years of lobby by human rights groups for Malacañang to ratify the statute by submitting it to the Senate for concurrence. The “Rome Statute,” as the name implies, was adopted in Rome in 1998, with 160 countries and international organizations and non-government organizations voting this way: 120 for, 7 against, with 21 abstentions. Among the prominent opposers were the United States, Israel and China.

Then president Joseph Estrada signed the statute in December 2001 but failed to submit it to the Senate for concurrence as he was ousted a month later in what was known as Edsa 2. His replacement, then vice president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, refused to complete the ratification process of the Rome Statute, following the lead of then US president George W. Bush, who opposed its ratification in his country.

The change in the leadership in the Philippines from Arroyo to Benigno Aquino III in 2010 and the aggressive championing of the statute by Santiago resulted in the completion of the ratification process in 2011. Aquino signed the statute in February of that year and the Senate, with Santiago delivering her sponsorship speech, voted 17-1 in favor (with former senator Juan Ponce-Enrile the lone dissenter). Among those who hailed the statute’s ratification was one Harry Roque.

Fast forward 2017 under President Rodrigo Duterte, who succeeded Noynoy Aquino in 2016, and with Santiago already dead. Fourteen senators led by then Senate president pro-tempore Franklin Drilon, filed Senate Resolution No. 289. It partly read: “A treaty or international agreement ratified by the President and concurred in by the Senate becomes part of the law of the land and may not be undone without the shared power that put it into effect.”

But neophyte Sen. Emmanuel Pacquiao, a boxer and graduate of the Alternative Learning System program in high school, blocked the measure whose authors included the Senate’s current major intellects. His argument: the constitution only grants the Senate the power to concur, which means that the president has the sole power to end a treaty. Of course, Pacquiao didn’t do the organizing of his thoughts on his own; his argument carried the diktat of the political boss.

What was the significance of Pacquiao’s move to the current issue?

The failure by the 14 senators to pass the 2017 resolution is now being used by the Senate to do a Pontius Pilate. Asked about Senate concurrence to the president’s decision for the country to withdraw from the ambit of the Rome Statute, some senators said they could no longer do anything about it because of the non-passage of Senate Resolution 289.

In a way, what the “great” Miriam championed, the Pacquiao helped knock out. Sad and laughable.