SC sets guidelines for debate on pleas vs. ICC withdrawal

The Supreme Court (SC) has issued guidelines for the upcoming August 14 oral arguments on the consolidated pleadings challenging the Philippines' withdrawal from the establishing treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a July 17 advisory, the SC set four major issues concerning President Rodrigo Duterte's decision to pull out the country's membership from the genocide and war crimes court, a prosecutor of which is looking into drug war-related allegations against him.

Up for debate are the issues of whether or not the SC may take cognizance of the consolidated petitions, and whether or not the withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the ICC's establishing treaty, through a note verbale delivered to the Secretary General of the United Nations, is "valid, binding and effectual."

These cover whether or not the government's executive branch had valid grounds to withdraw from the Rome Statute, and if the backing out demanded the concurrence of at least two-thirds of the Senate, as has been claimed by its challengers.

Also up for oral arguments are the questions of whether or not the country's withdrawal from the Rome Statue constitutes a breach of its obligations under international law; and whether or not the pullout will "diminish the Filipino people's protection under International Law" — and if it is at all a question that could be subject to trial in a court of law.

Pending before the SC are the consolidated pleadings of opposition senators Leila de Lima, Francis Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon, Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, Risa Hontiveros, and Antonio Trillanes IV, and of the Philippine Coalition for the ICC.

The lawmakers' petition asked the SC to declare "invalid and ineffective" the Philippines' withdrawal from the Rome Statute without the nod of two-thirds of the members of the Senate, the body that ratified it in 2011.

For its part, the coalition's petition wants the Philippines' Notice of Withdrawal from the ICC declared "void ab initio," and the government ordered to recall and revoke the document submitted to the UN Secretary General.

Named respondents in the petitions were Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, Permanent Philippine mission to the UN Teodoro Locsin, Jr., and chief presidential legal counsel Salvador Panelo. — MDM, GMA News