Clarita Carlos: Human rights primary, let ICC investigate

Political Science professor Clarita Carlos vowed to put highest value on the respect and protection of every individual's human right as she prepares to assume the post as the country's top security adviser.

“Human rights is primary. Kasi human security is the highest premium… ano naman ang ma-aano mo kung ang sarili mong kapakanan ay hindi maprotektahan ng state?” Carlos said in the latest episode of The Mangahas Interviews.

“So, the first protection is really the protection of the individual. So ‘yun ang tutukan natin. Yun ang basic platform natin,” the incoming National Security Adviser said.

“Pero hindi ako lumabas dun sa military na hindi mo na papakialaman ang external factors, pay attention to it. Ang sinasabi ko lang mas malapit sa damdamin ng tao, ‘yung security niya as an individual,” Carlos stressed.

Let ICC investigate EJKs

Meanwhile, Carlos said the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s office should proceed with its investigation into the alleged extrajudicial killings under President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign against illegal drugs.

"10,000 times na ako na-interview tungkol diyan and I’ve declared already so many, many, many times imbestigahan ninyo iyang extrajudicial killings on the basis of which mag-iimbestiga ang ICC,” she said.

(I have been interviewed… 10,000 times about that and I’ve already declared so many, many, many times you will investigate those extrajudicial killings on the basis of which the ICC will investigate.)

“Let them investigate. As a matter of fact, I said, ‘you invite them here. We have a team of scholars like us who can accompany them… ‘wag tayong minders. Bigyan mo sila ng alagwa na hanapin ang data na kailangang hanapin. Then, let them have their conclusions, whatever it is,” she added.

"Kailangan kino-confront mo 'yan directly otherwise nagra-rankle," Carlos said.

In September 2021, the ICC opened the investigation on the request of then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s to probe crimes “allegedly committed on the territory of the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019 in the context of so-called war on drugs.

But two months later, in November, the ICC suspended the probe on the request of the Philippine government as the Department of Justice conducts its own investigation of several cases.

Duterte has then insisted that he would only face a Philippine court and if he should be imprisoned for the killings, it should be in the country's jails.

Malacañang also said it would be difficult for the ICC to “uncover the truth” as it insisted that the Philippine government will not cooperate in the investigation owing to the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, in 2019.—Mel Matthew Doctor/LDF, GMA News