Duterte fears Matobato and Lascanas in ICC

Jude Josue Sabio .

PRESIDENT Duterte’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) is stunning. Duterte earlier said that he welcomed the ICC, as he was “sick and tired” of being accused of crimes against humanity.  Duterte would even personally defend himself in the ICC, eager to  question ICC prosecutor Bensouda.

But Duterte’s withdrawal is not stunning after all, if seen from his countless flip-flopping in public. The litany of his flip-flopping is long and legendary. One easily recalls him saying that his intention to jetski to the disputed islands is just a joke.

Yet, on a deeper level, Duterte’s withdrawal can never be stunning at all, if credibly viewed as part and parcel of his obstinate and long-standing obstruction of justice.

The Ernesto Avasola case looms as an instructive historical precedent. In 2009, when the Davao Death Squad was being probed, Duterte allegedly obstructed the search for human skeletal remains of the victims of the Davao Death Squad.

The alleged obstruction is now part of a permanent judicial record in a Decision of the Supreme Court. In 2009, Ernesto Avasola testified in court that he witnessed the killing of five persons by the so-called Davao Death Squad. He said he was personally instructed by police officer Bienvenido Laud, whom he fondly called “Tatay,” to bury the cadavers in three caves inside the laud quarry which is owned by Tatay Laud.

The conspiracy to obstruct justice was allegedly implemented through Duterte’s fraternity brother lawyer Vitaliano Aguirre and lawyer Salvador Medialdea. They challenged the validity of the search warrant issued by the Manila court, asserting that unreliability of the firsthand testimony of Ernesto Avasola.

After a long process of litigation that went up to the Supreme Court through the Court of Appeals, the case was finally decided in November 2014.  Both the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court affirmed the testimony of Ernesto Avasola. Unfortunately for Duterte, the Supreme Court ruled the search warrant to be valid based on Avasola’s testimony.

This Supreme Court decision is now part of the information in the communication I submitted with the International Criminal Court.  The testimony of Ernesto Avasola, in a long judicial proceeding, corroborates, on certain material points, the subsequent testimony of Edgar Matobato as later corroborated by Arturo Lascanas.

In my humble view, it is this Supreme Court decision in the Avasola case concerning the Davao Death Squad that is the last nail on the coffin for the grave that Duterte is currently digging for himself in the ICC.

This grand conspiracy to obstruct justice is confirmed by two incidents personally witnessed by Arturo Lascanas. At one time, he was part of a group which included Sonny Buevaventura and Arturo Lascanas in fetching Aguirre at the Davao airport.  Aguirre was then in Davao to lawyer for the Davao Death Squad.

Aguirre allegedly reminded Laud to clear his quarry of the human skeletal remains. What is very telling is that Aguirre allegedly told Laud to claim that the skeletal remains that could not be found anymore belong to Japanese soldiers in World War II.

In another incident at the residence itself of Duterte, Lascanas said he personally witnessed an incident in which Duterte allegedly shelled out a substantial amount for the purchase of a motorboat to be used in throwing corpses into the sea at Samal island.

Viewed from this context, Duterte’s ICC withdrawal is just part of his long-standing defense strategy. In the domestic front, he utilized the judicial system to prolong the legal challenge of the search of the Laud quarry – which incidentally had yielded human skeletal remains – and in the meantime, he was able to prevent the human skeletal remains from being used as evidence against him.

Meantime, the case against the Davao Death Squad referred by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to the Ombudsman had no evidence to stand on because CHR then could not use as evidence the skeletal remains found at the Laud quarry, apart from the fact that a fraternity brother of Duterte, as then CHR head in Davao, opined that the Davao Death Squad was merely gossip.

Instead of raising legitimate legal issues in the ICC, Duterte has opted to attack the very existence and legitimacy of the ICC. Principally, he lambasts the ICC as a “political tool” of the UN and other personalities. Egregiously and very embarrassingly and in a brazen spectacle of ignorance of the law, Duterte also asserts that the Philippines never became a member of the ICC due to lack of publication of the Rome Statute.

Whatever it is, ever since the case of Ernesto Avasola, Duterte has exhibited a penchant to suppress the evidence against him. In our law of evidence, evidence intentionally suppressed is adverse. That is true in the Avasola case and in the case before the ICC.

I assert, without fear of contradiction, that Duterte is just afraid of Edgar Matobato and Arturo Lascanas. He discredits the ICC only so that these two whistleblowers may not be able to testify in the ICC. Duterte is being haunted by his atrocities which he intend, as a defense strategy all along, to hide from judicial scrutiny.

But just like in the Avasola case, Duterte will not succeed in further shielding himself from criminal responsibility in the ICC. He will not be allowed to obstruct justice in the ICC, no matter what he does. As a matter of complementarity in international criminal justice, Duterte must be brought to and jailed in the ICC.