No one can tell us how to run our country and undermine ourjudicial system, especially a treaty-based international organization in which the Philippines is no longer a state party. As an independent nation, sovereignty resides in the Filipino people. I stand by our government’s position that we have the first responsibility and right to prosecute crimes committed within our territory.

As I have stated in filing Senate Resolution No. 492, the ICC’s insistence on investigating

the war on drugs of the Duterte administration is disrespectful of our sovereignty and undermines our fully capable judicial system.

It may only exercise jurisdiction where the national legal systems fail to do so which was not and continue to be not the case insofar as our domestic institutions are concerned.