Since the so-called crimes against humanity complaint was filed with the International Criminal Court, or ICC, by the late lawyer Jude Sabio shortly after President Rodrigo Duterte began his presidency in 2016, it was believed that it was politically driven.

There were several reasons for the dregs of Philippine society and the political opposition then to form a marriage of convenience against the unrelenting campaign against drugs and the political opposition’s pursuit of its preservation.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has again stressed his position of not recognizing the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines, underlining a sovereign privilege.

“I consider this as a threat to our sovereignty. Therefore, the Philippine government will not lift a finger to help any investigation that the ICC conducts,” he said.

The statement stems from the background of the probe that was initiated by the opponents of former President Duterte during the heated political atmosphere after he launched the war on drugs that dragged in several officials of the yellow regime of the late President Noynoy Aquino.

A collusion between rights groups and drug lords to bring down President Duterte was suspected in the filing of the ICC complaint.

It was then Foreign Affairs Secretary now Senator Alan Peter Cayetano who raised the possibility although he qualified that non-government organizations, or NGOs, may have been drawn unwittingly into cooperating with narcotics syndicates against Duterte.

Drug syndicates were then frantic over declining narcotics demand leading to sales being drastically reduced amid the Duterte crackdown.

Rights groups, in turn, harped on the extrajudicial killings that the political opponents of Duterte such as Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV blamed on the drug war, claiming that 20,000 summary executions happened during police operations.

The actual number at the time was high but not as fantastic as the Trillanes claim. Police figures showed more than 3,000 deaths in legitimate anti-narcotics police operations.

NGOs such as the New York-based Human Rights Watch exploited the EJK claims in their fundraising efforts, as many groups always appended a solicitation message at the end of derogatory stories or statements on Duterte.

These groups that accused Duterte and his administration of being behind the summary killings and rights abuses were, in effect, even unwittingly, helping the cause of the drug traffickers in keeping in check the drug war campaign.

The mutually beneficial relations of rights groups and drug syndicates revolved around the use of the human rights mechanism that was supposed to assist the government in complying with international standards.

Then came the complaint before the ICC from Sabio, who turned out to be among the minions of Trillanes.

Sabio later tried to withdraw the ICC case after a falling out with Trillanes over unpaid retainers.

It was easy pickings for traffickers to tap rights groups and Rody’s critics to try and remove him from power.

Rights-sensitive European countries also stepped up the pressure on Duterte regarding the EJK claims.

NGOs became “big shots” in international conferences merely for attacking Duterte for the funding that then followed.

Drug syndicates used donations to charity and cause-oriented organizations to launder their money since such corporate social work are also tax shelters.

In one controversial rights forum, then Vice President Leni Robredo, head of the political opposition, submitted a so-called “palit-ulo” video in which she alleged that innocent individuals who were relatives of targets of the drug war were themselves EJK victims.

Trillanes also went to Austria to speak before the United Nations Drugs and Crime Convention, which was the forum that presented the Robredo video.

Trillanes at the forum did not present himself as a senator but as a member of NRCNet which was the group that supplied Robredo’s video to the UN event.

Robredo’s video cited the 7,000 deaths associated with the war on drugs that in turn Sabio used as the basis for the filing of crimes against humanity charges against Duterte before the ICC.

Marcos knows that cooperating with the ICC would be giving in to the complex web of malice that has long afflicted the nation and hindered political advancement.