Palace awaiting list of new UN rapporteurs

The United Nations is submitting to Malacañang a list of new rapporteurs who would investigate allegations of extrajudicial killings perpetrated or condoned by the Duterte administration in pursuit of its war on illegal drugs.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the UN Secretary General has communicated with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) regarding possible replacements for UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard whose alleged “prejudging” of the human rights situation in the country had earned her the wrath of President Duterte.

“You know, the special rapporteur in extralegal killings is only one of the special rapporteurs under the thematic rapporteur system of the UN Human Rights Council. There are other rapporteurs,” Roque said.

He said he was to recommend names but got word the DFA and the UN were already in communication regarding the matter.

“I withheld my recommendation when I found out that there was already communication between the UN SecGen himself and our Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Let’s await the list of possible names to be given by the UN Secretary General,” he said.

Roque had earlier taunted Callamard by asking her to swim in the polluted Pasig River if she really wanted to be welcomed in Manila.

On Thursday, the President called her an “undernourished woman” at a gathering of local officials in Pampanga.

In the same gathering, he derisively called International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda “black” and boasted the ICC does not have jurisdiction over him.

But opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman said Duterte cannot escape the ICC probe just by invoking sovereignty.

He said that as a signatory to the Rome Statute on the ICC, the country “is obligated to submit to the jurisdiction of the court and cooperate fully with its investigators.”

Then president Benigno Aquino III signed the statute on Feb. 28, 2011 and the Senate gave its concurrence on Aug. 23 of the same year.

He also lashed out at Roque for contradicting his own advocacy as human rights lawyer and party-list representative.

Roque, Lagman pointed out, “cannot mouth with candor and conviction the administration’s evasive stance after he had filed on Aug.10, 2016, as a former Kabayan party-list representative, Bill No. 2835, entitled ‘An Act in compliance by the Republic of the Philippines with its obligations under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and for other purposes’.”

Lagman noted that in Roque’s explanatory note, the former party-list congressman underscored that his bill “creates a comprehensive system by which the Philippines shall extend legal assistance to the International Criminal Court in its judicial proceedings.”

He noted that Roque himself emphasized in his bill that legal assistance “includes the arrest and surrender of persons, searches, procurement of evidence and other matters.”

“This bill is consistent with domestic and international law… as a party to the Rome Statute, the Philippines must fulfill its international legal obligations to assist the Court in the task of addressing the most serious crimes of international concern,” Lagman quoted Roque as saying in his bill.

“Even as he is the President’s anointed apologist, Roque cannot flip-flop without remorse and forfeit any of his remaining credibility,” Lagman said.

Meanwhile, party-list group Bayan Muna is strongly condemning the Duterte administration’s move to designate as “terrorists” at least 600 individuals allegedly connected with the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army, including Bayan Muna president and former congressman Satur Ocampo.

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