Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said prosecutors from the International Criminal Court (ICC) will be deported if they enter the Philippines to investigate allegations of extrajudicial killings in President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
Panelo however could not cite a domestic law as the basis of the government in deporting staff from the ICC. He said the Bureau of Immigration could turn prosecutors away if they say they are investigating the government and interfering with the sovereignty of the country. The country’s withdrawal from the ICC took effect on Sunday, a year after the government served its notice of withdrawal from the Rome Statute to the United Nations. This makes the Philippines the second country to pull out from the only war crimes tribunal in the world after Burundi canceled its ICC membership in 2017.
