Interior and Local Government Secretary Juanito Victor Remulla said Monday he will ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to allow former President Rodrigo Duterte to take his oath as mayor of Davao City, despite being detained in The Hague, Netherlands.
“We recognize the victory of former President Rodrigo Duterte. He was declared mayor-elect by the Comelec and proclaimed the day after the elections. It was an overwhelming mandate. So we recognize him as the mayor,” Remulla said during an inspection at the Anonas Police Station in Quezon City.
“All I will do is inform the ICC if our consul can administer the oath, since he needs to take it to assume office,” he added.
Remulla clarified, however, that in Duterte’s absence, the elected vice mayor—his son, Sebastian “Baste” Duterte—will lead the city. “He needs to be physically present. So in his incapacity to serve, the vice mayor will sit as acting mayor,” he said.
Duterte was arrested in the Philippines on March 11 under an ICC warrant and is currently held at the Scheveningen Prison in The Hague. He faces charges of crimes against humanity in connection with the extrajudicial killings during his administration’s war on drugs.
Prosecutors at the ICC meanwhile rejected a request from Duterte’s legal team to disqualify two judges from ruling on the court’s jurisdiction over his case.
His lead counsel, Nicholas Kaufman, had asked the ICC on May 12 to remove Judges Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou and María del Socorro Flores Liera, arguing that their previous approval of the investigation indicated potential bias.
In a May 22 response, Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang dismissed the request, citing four main points:
- A high threshold is required to rebut the presumption of judicial impartiality.
- Judges often adjudicate similar legal issues.
- The Rome Statute allows for multiple rulings on jurisdiction.
- The judges’ earlier decisions were preliminary and do not indicate bias.
The prosecution emphasized that those decisions were made without defense input and did not prejudge the case. “The defense request should be rejected because it fails to call into question the presumption of impartiality attached to the Judges,” the prosecution said.
Editor’s Note: This is an updated article. Originally posted with the headline “DILG to seek ICC nod for Duterte to take oath as Davao City mayor.”
