Duterte camp’s ID proposal for victims slammed as ‘grave injustice’

Former president Rodrigo Duterte’s legal team is facing strong backlash from human rights lawyers over its proposal to impose stricter requirements for identity documents submitted by victims to the International Criminal Court (ICC), with critics warning that such a move would unjustly bar impoverished individuals from pursuing justice.

Atty. Joel Butuyan, an ICC-accredited lawyer, labeled the proposed restrictions a “grave injustice twice over,” referring to the exclusion of victims from participating in the case due to a lack of government-issued IDs.

Earlier, Duterte’s legal team—led by British-Israeli lawyer Nicholas Kaufman—questioned efforts to allow alleged victims of the drug war to testify in proceedings before the ICC. Kaufman advocated that only a valid national ID or a current Philippine passport should be accepted to verify the identity of victims, claiming this would streamline the process and prevent fraud.

Butuyan, however, pushed back, arguing that such documents are often inaccessible to the marginalized sectors of Philippine society—those who make up the majority of drug war casualties. He emphasized that withholding recognition from victims merely because they cannot produce these IDs further deepens their suffering.

Echoing this stance, the Center for International Law (CenterLaw) said the defense’s position revealed a lack of understanding of the plight of drug war victims, calling the proposed restrictions unjust and exclusionary.

Kaufman maintained that strict ID requirements would prevent issues such as misidentification and duplicate claims, which he warned could lead to delays and complications in the proceedings.

Still, Butuyan argued that requiring such “badges of wealth and privilege” effectively bars impoverished victims from participating in the ICC case. “They are unavailable to victims who wallow in poverty, and who constitute the overwhelming number of the people killed by his client,” he said.Human rights lawyer Kristina Conti, who has been working closely with the victims, also denounced the proposal as “antipoor” and “out of touch.” She expressed support for the original guidelines proposed by the ICC’s Victims Participation and Reparations Section, describing the restrictive approach as not only discouraging but also heartless. TRACY CABRERA