By Ade S. Fajardo
Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla has announced that Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa is now the subject of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The senator is consistently mentioned as a potential co-accused in the crimes against humanity case against former President Rodrigo Duterte.
In some submissions made by the ICC prosecutor, he cited Dela Rosa’s promise: “If someone fights back, they’ll die. If nobody fights back, we’ll make them fight back.”
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Dela Rosa’s famous threat was made when it became certain that Duterte would win the presidency in 2016.
True enough, on his first day as head of the Philippine National Police, Dela Rosa issued the Command Memorandum Circular No. 16-2016, otherwise known as “Project Double Barrel.”
The Oplan replicated Duterte’s drug war when he was mayor of Davao City.
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As everybody knows, Duterte was flown out of the country on the strength of an ICC-issued warrant of arrest in March this year.
However, when asked if Dela Rosa’s case would follow the same process as Duterte’s arrest, former chief justice and now Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said, “Not anymore.”
Bersamin pointed out the Supreme Court’s new rules on extradition, which purportedly require prior court proceedings before any individual subject to extradition may be arrested and sent to another country.
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Is this correct? Are the new rules on extradition applicable to Senator Dela Rosa’s case?
AM No. 22-03-29-SC, or the Rules on Extradition Proceedings, defines an extradition as “the removal of an extraditee from the Philippines with the object of placing them at the disposal of foreign authorities to enable the requesting state to hold the extraditee in connection with any criminal investigation directed against them or for the execution of a penalty imposed under the penal or criminal law of the requesting state.”
Simply stated, extradition happens when a criminal is given up by one government to another government where the criminal case against them is pending.
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Extradition is necessary because one country has no power to extract a fugitive from the territory of another country.
Countries thus agree by treaty to surrender wanted persons in their respective jurisdictions.
An extradition treaty, according to the rules issued by the Supreme Court, pertains to a “bilateral agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the requesting state, or a multilateral agreement to which both the Philippines and the requesting state are state parties, containing provisions governing extradition.”
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Whether bilateral or multilateral, both treaty types comprehend a requesting state.
To state the obvious, the ICC is not a state but a court of law that tries individuals charged with the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.
What happens is that the ICC Registry sends the Philippines the warrant of arrest coupled with a request for arrest and surrender to member-states and partners like the Interpol./WDJ