DOJ ready to take on challenge to Duterte kin petitions - Remulla

Metro Manila, Philippines - The Department of Justice (DOJ) is “more than sufficient” to defend the government’s position in the Supreme Court petitions for former President Rodrigo Duterte’s return to the country from the International Criminal Court (ICC), a Cabinet official said on Wednesday, March 19,.

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla made the comment as the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) withdrew from the case filed by Duterte’s children to nullify the government’s engagement with the ICC.

Remulla said he has not spoken with Solicitor General Menardo Guevara, and he would just “move on from here.”

“His recusal was not on my clearance, he does not clear things with me. But of course, I consider it a personal reason,” Remulla said in a ‘Kapihan in Manila Bay’ forum.

“If he did not want to use the Office of the Solicitor General that’s his own reason, because I think the resources of the government should not be wasted in a time like this,” Remulla said. “We have to put the best legal minds to work.”

The executive secretary has given the DOJ the authority to represent the government on petitions with the high court.

The solicitor general is the government’s chief law officer and legal defender.

“The DOJ would be more than sufficient to defend the position of the republic on this matter,” Remulla said.

“We will prepare for a possible round of oral arguments if need be, as I said, already, it’s a done deal. The man is already under the jurisdiction of the ICC,” the justice secretary said.

Duterte’s children Paolo, Baste, and Kitty filed separate habeas corpus petitions in a bid to release the family patriarch from ICC custody and compel the government to bring the former president back.

Duterte is facing charges of crimes against humanity of murder over extrajudicial killings during his bloody war on drugs.

In its manifestation, the OSG said it wants to be excused from the consolidated petitions as the “government has no legal obligation to cooperate with the ICC.”

Remulla said the government took an “executive action” instead of a “judicial alternative” on Duterte’s arrest, which was coursed through the Interpol. He insisted the government was “in the right the whole time.”