Trillanes: No ICC warrant vs Bong Go

Senator Christopher Lawrence Go —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines — Former Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Thursday refuted the claim of Davao City Rep. Paolo “Pulong” Duterte that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has already released a warrant of arrest against Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go.

“Don’t believe Pulong. No ICC warrant has come out for anyone yet,” said Trillanes, who was the first to reveal the ICC arrest warrants against former President Rodrigo Duterte and Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.

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“Should a warrant indeed come out later, he definitely won’t know about it, just like when his father didn’t know that he had a warrant,” he added.

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Aside from Trillanes, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Philippine National Police, along with the Department of Justice (DOJ), have likewise stated that they have yet to receive any information about the alleged warrant.

Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla said the Davao City congressman “may have been high” when he claimed that the ICC issued a warrant for Go.

READ: DILG on Duterte saying ICC arrest order for Go out: He might be ‘high’

Dangerous pronouncements

“He may have been high (“sabog”) when he heard that because we do not see anything like that,” Remulla told reporters in Camp Crame. “We’re always prepared. But those kinds of pronouncements are dangerous.”

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Also in Camp Crame, PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. disavowed any knowledge of an ICC warrant. “Good for him if he knows. As for me, I don’t know.”

The DOJ also denied knowledge of official notification of an ICC warrant against Go. “We have not received any official communication from the ICC regarding the alleged issuance of a warrant of arrest against (Go),” said DOJ spokesperson Polo Martinez.

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He added that the Philippine Center on Transnational Crime, the agency tasked to enforce such a warrant and through which such an arrest order would first be coursed, denied receiving any document from the ICC.

READ: Future ICC warrants of arrest to be enforced immediately – Palace

But the official denials do not necessarily mean there is no such warrant. In May, the ICC confirmed that it issued an arrest order for Dela Rosa in November last year, but it was placed under seal in accordance with ICC rules.

When the ICC order was made public on May 11, Dela Rosa disappeared while under the Senate’s protective custody. He was last seen getting into a vehicle with Sen. Robin Padilla on May 14.

Go was a special presidential assistant and head of the Presidential Management Staff from 2016 to 2018 before he was elected to the Senate in 2019. Before his stint with the national government, Go was a personal aide of Rodrigo Duterte when he was Davao City mayor.

Go’s reaction

Asked about the ICC warrant, Go said he will simply leave it up to a higher being, all while maintaining that he has never violated any laws. He is charged with being a “co-perpetrator” in Duterte’s drug war.

“I will just leave everything to God. In my entire life, I have never broken any human law or God’s law,” he said in a statement.

“Police matters have never been part of my mandate. I hope and pray that the supposed ICC warrant isn’t politicized against me,” he added.

Malacañang neither confirmed nor denied whether the ICC issued warrants of arrest for Go and retired police generals, Oscar Albayalde and Vicente Danao Jr.

Along with Dela Rosa and Go, the two former police officials wielded “de facto authority” over those who carried out the killings under Duterte, according to the ICC.

Palace press officer Claire Castro, who was part of President Marcos’s entourage in his two-day official working visit in Kazan, Russia, rejected claims by Pulong that the ICC was being used as a political weapon by the Marcos administration.

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“Why do we always blame the court or blame the administration? Let us not forget that these cases were filed as early as 2017 [long before Marcos was elected President],” she said. /cb