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By Karen Lema
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines said on Wednesday it would not stand in the way if former President Rodrigo Duterte wants to surrender to the International Criminal Court, and would be obliged to comply with any international arrest warrant over his "war on drugs".
During a congressional hearing on Wednesday into the bloody crackdown on narcotics that killed thousands of Filipinos, the mercurial Duterte said he was not scared of the ICC and told it to "hurry up" on its investigation into possible crimes against humanity.
The office of the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr issued a statement hours later indicating it would be willing to consider handing Duterte over if an Interpol request was made.
"The government will feel obliged to consider the red notice as a request to be honoured, in which case the domestic law enforcement agencies shall be bound to accord full cooperation," the president's Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said.
The statement was significant, marking the first time the Philippine government has suggested it would cooperate with the ICC, which last year cleared the way for an investigation into the bloody campaign that defined Duterte's 2016-2022 presidency.
Duterte unilaterally withdrew the Philippines from the court in March 2019 after it opened a preliminary examination of the killings. The court has said prosecutors have jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed before the withdrawal.
According to police data, more than 6,200 people were killed in anti-drug operations under Duterte. Human rights groups believe the real toll to be far greater, with thousands more users and small-time peddlers killed in mysterious circumstances by unknown assailants.
Activists have documented what they say is a pattern of systematic executions of unarmed suspects that were covered up by falsified incident reports and staged crime scenes. Police have rejected that and said suspects were armed and were killed in self-defence.
In the president's office statement, Bersamin said the government would neither object nor block Duterte if he wished to surrender.
The ICC's prosecutor's office said it follows developments in the Philippines closely but does not comment on statements made by governments with respect to ongoing investigations.
'IF I GO TO HELL, SO BE IT'
Duterte remained defiant during Wednesday's hearing as he defended his drugs crackdown, which was a key plank of his election campaign, during which he had promised thousands of drug pushers and criminals would be killed.
"ICC does not scare me a bit. They can come here anytime. I suppose that you would want to maybe make it easy for them to visit and start the investigation. I would welcome that," Duterte said.
During a hearing that was still ongoing after nearly 10 hours, Duterte faced families of victims and expressed no regret over decisions he took, framing them as tough but necessary.
"I have nothing to hide. What I did, I did it for my country and for the young people. No excuses. No apologies. If I go to hell, so be it."
The 79-year old said he was getting impatient, and asked the ICC to "hurry up".
"I am already old, I might die soon. You might miss the pleasure of seeing me standing before the court hearing the judgement whatever it is," Duterte said, adding he assumed full responsibility for what happened.
(Reporting by Karen Lema; Additional reporting by Stephanie van den Berg in The Hague; Editing by John Mair, Martin Petty)
