President BBM recently declared on August 1 that the Philippines would not rejoin the ICC. No cogent reasons regarding national interest were given — the “we will lose our sovereignty” argument is neither cogent nor accurate as seen below. Note that he, as a Senator in 2011, concurred with the ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC.
Do you know, Reader, that there is RA 9851, signed into law in 2009, two years before we ratified the Rome Statute? Some experts say it is even more strict than the Rome Statute. It punishes superiors who either knew or, owing to the circumstances at the time, should have known that the subordinates were committing or about to commit crimes against humanity? So why has Duterte or anyone not even been charged, much less brought to trial under this law?
The first piece of hard evidence is the assessment of the Philippine government itself on the justice situation in the PDP 2023-2028. It says, , “Despite… positive developments, several policy reforms and key legislations remain unattained, such as “Fragmentation of the criminal justice system remains a challenge”, “ Backlogs in resolving cases, delays caused by inefficient practices, and aging persist”, “ Limited resources weaken the justice sector,” and “Low public confidence in the justice system undermines the rule of law”, all expounded in the chapter.