Philippine Attorney General Jose Remula said he is willing to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in certain areas, signaling a softening of the country's attitude toward the court's investigation into former President Rodrigo Duterte's "war on drugs."
"We will speak to them very soon in a very clear way, in a spirit of comity, to bridge the differences so that we can sit at the same table," Remula said in an interview, Reuters reported.
"There are areas where we can work together and where we have to draw the right line."
Mr Remula's comments represent a marked shift from the Philippine government's hardline stance on the ICC, which it had insisted had no authority to investigate.
Remula said cooperation with the international court was still allowed under Philippine law and that ICC representatives "have been in and out of the Philippines all the time." "According to people I know in the human rights community, they have had contacts here."
Duterte has aggressively pursued his war on drugs since coming to power in 2016. Police say 6,200 suspects have been killed in the anti-drug campaign.
But activists say the real death toll is much higher, with thousands of slum drug users killed under mysterious circumstances, many of them on official watch lists.
Police have denied involvement in the killings and denied accusations by human rights groups of systematic executions and cover-ups.
In 2019, when the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into this, Duterte unilaterally announced the Philippines' withdrawal from the founding treaty of the ICC.
Duterte was unapologetic in his own defense, saying he told police to kill only in self-defense.
At a congressional hearing last November, he urged the ICC to speed up its investigation, adding that "if I go to hell, so be it".
In response, President Marcos Jr. said his government would not block the ICC if Duterte wanted to be investigated and that the government was obligated to comply with any international arrest warrant related to the anti-drug war.
If indicted, Duterte would become the first former Asian head of state to be tried at the ICC.
Asked about the possibility of the Philippines rejoining the ICC, Remula said that was a separate issue, though he suggested the country was willing to cooperate with the court in a limited way.
Remula said the ICC's work has helped advance the Philippines' own investigations. "We have to acknowledge that there were inadequacies, and we always want justice for everyone."
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