VICE PRESIDENT Sara Duterte on Saturday, May 31, affirmed her continued trust in the International Criminal Court (ICC) judges even as she received reports of witness tampering in the case involving former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Speaking to reporters in The Hague, Duterte addressed a question regarding the prosecutor setting aside a witness, stating, “We still give our trust to the judges and the courts.”
“However, we have received reports from early on, from the year 2023, about the tampering of witnesses by investigators who went to the Republic of the Philippines,” she stated.
Despite these reports, she reiterated her confidence in the judicial process.
“But we still give our trust, our full trust to the judges and the ICC court that they will be fair, and that they will be unbiased and that they will be objective in assessing all the petitions of the defense counsel,” she emphasized.
She also dismissed alleged concerns among those in the administration on her father’s potential return to politics and his potential retaliation against their political enemies.
Instead, she highlighted her father’s track record, saying, “History will tell us that former President Duterte never went after his political enemies. No one at all in his entire career who was against him politically did he go after.”
She cited examples of political opponents who remained active and even ran for office despite their opposition to her father.
“Senator Trillanes, for example, he went after President Duterte from 2015 to 2016 to 2017, and up to today he is still running after President Duterte, and we still see Trillanes now,” she said, adding that discussions about her father’s alleged vengeful nature were “not a critical analysis.”
The vice president’s statements came amid ongoing scrutiny of the ICC’s jurisdiction and proceedings concerning alleged human rights abuses during the elder Duterte’s “war on drugs.”
