As a take-off point, let’s borrow a dictionary meaning of the term, conventions, viz: “a form of international gatherings and agreements, can be a powerful tool for soft power, allowing nations to promote their values, build relationships, and shape global norms through cultural exchanges and collaboration, rather than coercion.”

In short, as a soft power, it’s a toothless tiger as it lacks any coercive muscle to enforce compliance.

Such is the case with the International Criminal Court as governed by the Rome Statute. Apparently, the most serious crimes of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression, also referred as the “core crimes” in international criminal law, are embedded in the subject statute.

Thus, the documented casualties of the “war on drugs” launched by former President Rodrigo Duterte during his incumbency constituted the “crimes against humanity,” the basis for the warrant of arrest and state-sponsored abduction of DU30 to bring him to the cognizance of that ICC, commonly ascribed to as the “court of last resort.”

By the ICC’s reckoning, crimes against humanity are “acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at a civilian population, such as murder, deportation, torture and rape.”

Depending on the evidence to be proffered, the range of acts falling under the crime category may have been invariably committed albeit not in the time of a real war. Ironically, even Du30 himself was wont to ask, “Please, soldier, tell me what crime have I committed,” during the confrontation with the arresting team.

Following the rough arrest and speedy delivery to the ICC in The Hague (the Netherlands), Filipinos who thought, felt, believed that DU30 was “wronged” by no less than FM Jr. whom he had helped to become president launched indignation street demonstrations and prayer rallies —from within and beyond.

Sadly, the president-ordered arrest of DU30 (a 360-degree somersault from earlier declarations) could soon suffer from a backlash of unimagined proportions. Telltale signs of serious political instability might spread like wildfire.

It’s a tad difficult to explain what triggered this treacherous political maneuver to a six-year-old without leaving so many questions unanswered. Why would FM Jr. disown and relegate the duty of our own courts of justice to a foreign court in situ? Is that not akin to throwing a fellow Filipino to the lions’ den — arrested, jailed, tried — by foreigner judges to be somehow convicted therein? How ungrateful could the powers-that-be be to hail or even celebrate this mad ICC arrest or cognizance just to advance their sinister selfish political agenda?

The last-minute judgment of the Supreme Court was rendered irrelevant or unenforceable when a chartered private plane — at government expense — in uncharacteristic haste never ever imagined mindlessly whisked away the ailing former president en route to The Hague. The graphic events set in motion was like the movies — carried out under contrived plots and sub-plots or subterfuge.

It’s hard to believe that as one reads the initial 54-page “public-redacted version” of the ICC Prosecution of 13 March 2024, it seems apparent that there’s less forensic evidence in the long enumeration of the “categories and types of evidence relied upon” (i.e., pages 9-10) and more on what looks like mere archival or agency documents, some witness statements and interview transcripts, media reports, including even DU30’s own public admissions and policy statements.

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