PH to appeal

But Menardo Guevarra, the chief lawyer for the President, told Agence France-Presse that the government would “exhaust our legal remedies, more particularly elevating the matter to the ICC appeals chamber.”

Solicitor General Guevarra and Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla both said Manila, instead of the ICC, should have jurisdiction over alleged drug war crimes.

“They are insulting us,” Remulla told reporters.

“I will not stand for any of these antics that will tend to question our sovereignty, our status as a sovereign country,” he said.

MGen, Valeriano de Leon, Philippine police operations chief, vowed the anti-drug crackdown would continue, calling Duterte an “inspiration.”

Former Palace spokesman Harry Roque Jr. said in a statement that Duterte “would never subject himself under the legal jurisdiction of any foreign body because it is an insult to the competence and impartiality of our functioning criminal justice system” but added that “he would humbly submit to the prosecution and judgment of any local court.”

Former president Duterte, who initiated the drug war, pulled the Philippines out of the ICC in 2019, a year after the Hague-based tribunal began a preliminary investigation into the crackdown.

The ICC launched a formal inquiry in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said it was re-examining several hundred cases of drug operations that led to deaths at the hands of police, hitmen and vigilantes. The ICC prosecutor later asked to reopen the inquiry in June 2022.

Announcing the resumption of its investigation on Thursday, the ICC said its pre-trial chamber was “not satisfied that the Philippines is undertaking relevant investigations that would warrant a deferral of the court’s investigations.”