Aguirre ready for charges before ICC

Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II dared yesterday lawyer Jude Sabio to “bring it on,” in reaction to the charge of crimes against humanity that the lawyer filed against him and President Duterte before the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Aguirre believes that someone might be financing the demolition job against Duterte and the administration’s war against illegal drugs.

Sabio is also the lawyer of selfconfessed Davao death squad (DDS) member Edgar Matobato who had implicated the President in extrajudicial killings of crime suspects.

He said that aside from Sabio and Matobato, there are other persons out to destabilize the Duterte administration by discrediting it before the international community.

“I believe that somebody is behind them because they will not be so brazen in their actions if there is no one holding the strings, purse strings included, behind the scenes,” said Aguirre.

If the attacks against Duterte are being funded by public officials, Aguirre said they should be investigated and be made accountable.

But if it is privately funded, Aguirre said it is still an act of destabilization.

“These destabilizers do not want the Filipino people to have a drug free future. They hate it when the greater majority of our countrymen benefit from the many gains of the Duterte administration. To them and their kind I say, bring it on,” Aguirre said.

“Initially, I found the filing of the case amusing. Not only are the allegations contained therein utterly false, they are purely hearsay,” he said.

He said his inclusion in the case is both amusing and baseless.

“The camp of Matobato and Sabio apparently threw a net in the sea with this case and want to see how many fishes they can catch before the ICC. Sorry to disappoint them this early, they will catch none. Their case is substantially and procedurally infirm and bereft of merit,” he said.

Aguirre categorically denied saying that drug lords are not humans, claiming that he was “deliberately misquoted.”