Imee: Is PHL now a province of The Hague?

By allowing the arrest and turnover of former president Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Marcos administration has surrendered the country's sovereignty and turned it into a "province of The Hague," Sen. Imee Marcos said yesterday.

- MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB

The ICC, which issued the arrest warrant on Duterte for crimes against humanity, is based in The Hague in the Netherlands. It is also the Netherlands' seat of government and the country's administrative capital.

In her opening statement at her foreign relations committee hearing on Duterte's arrest, Marcos criticized the move of her brother's administration to "give up Duterte, a fellow Filipino, to foreigners."

"Here we are, watching as a fellow Filipino — a leader, a father, a grandfather, a man who served this country — is taken, not by his own people, but by outsiders who claim the right to judge him," Marcos said.

Marcos said Duterte's arrest only showed that the law of a foreign land prevailed over Philippine laws.

“The law should indeed prevail. But whose law? Ours or theirs? Since when did the Philippines become a province of The Hague?” she added.

Marcos said that after the Philippine government’s offering assistance to the ICC to arrest Duterte, who is “one of our own,” then “what stops them from doing it again, and again – to you, to me, to any of us?”