MANILA, Philippines – Atty. Neri Colmenares believes they have a strong case against former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is facing charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.

Colmenares, who serves as counsel for the families of victims of extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s bloody drug war, stated, “We believe that the evidence is strong,” adding that the case is not only about the widespread nature of the attacks but also about Duterte’s direct role. “Duterte not only publicly ordered the killings, he publicly encouraged the killings by telling the police, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll pardon you, I’ll grant you amnesty.’”

Reacting to Vice President Sara Duterte’s statement questioning the reported figure of 30,000 drug war deaths during her father’s administration, Colmenares clarified that “the Rome Statute does not require a specific number of killings to cross the threshold so that it will become crimes against humanity.”

In an interview on ANC with Karmina Constantino, the former lawmaker outlined why the case against Duterte is strong. He explained that the ICC can assess the case based on either the widespread nature of the attacks or the system used to carry them out. A crime against humanity, he emphasized, must be either widespread or systematic.

Colmenares also questioned where the Vice President got the 30,000 figure. “The complaint we filed in 2018, we only listed what the government officially admitted to have killed at that time,” he said. “In our complaint, we have listed 3,427 deaths as admitted by the Philippine National Police (PNP).” He stressed that “as a lawyer, she should know the basis of her statement must always be from the complaint and the pleadings filed in the ICC rather than news reports.”

“We are very confident that if she uses that argument, I predict that they would lose,” Colmenares said, referring to the VP’s claim that the reported figure of 30,000 deaths is far from the 181 pieces of evidence submitted to the ICC. “If they use that, they will not win that argument in the ICC because we have not only proven that the attacks were widespread, but it was also a system, with the direct order from the former president down to the lowest PNP units.”

Colmenares emphasized, “We don’t speculate on how many were killed. Because for us, whether it’s 3, 30, 30,000, 6,000, or 600, it doesn’t matter—it’s one death too many.” He further challenged the VP’s argument, asking, “If the VP thinks this is not sufficient, how many do you need to kill to be a crime against humanity? For us, 43 was a representation of the totality of the victims. It’s sufficient to convict in cases of crimes against humanity. It is sufficient to convict because it was widespread or systematic against civilians.”

Atty. Joel Butuyan, an ICC-accredited lawyer, also weighed in, advising the VP to let her father’s legal team handle the case. “It will do well for the VP to leave [the talking] to her father’s lawyers on the merits of the ICC case instead of spouting foul words that only boomerang and apply to her,” he said.

Butuyan further clarified that “the ICC case is not about proving the murder of 30,000 Filipinos but about the decision by her father in ordering police forces to use extrajudicial killing as a solution to the illegal drugs problem.” Butuyan said reacting to the VP’s statement that there were no systematic killings because the alleged 30,000 extrajudicial killing (EJK) victims were not identified.

In an interview with the Inquirer, Butuyan explained, “The ICC is not a prosecution against ordinary police and their agents who pulled the trigger that resulted in 30,000 murders. Instead, it is a prosecution against the monster masterminds who ordered the trigger to be pulled in order to implement the mass murder of suspected drug personalities.”

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