MANILA -- President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. stood firm before German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction over the Philippines as it remains to have a working judicial system and law enforcement mechanisms.

In a bilateral meeting with Scholz on Tuesday (in Berlin), President Marcos said the ICC’s apparent intrusion to the Philippine judicial system is something that the government has to deal with.

“That is something that we now have to deal with,” President Marcos told Scholz. “Well, there is now a conflict between – in terms of jurisdiction because, in our opinion, the ICC was created when a country has no judiciary, no functioning judiciary, no police force to enforce peace and order; enforce law,” he said.

President Marcos said “it is a mistake” for the ICC to intervene in the judicial process in the Philippines since the country has a functioning judiciary and a “functioning military and police force that uphold the rule of law.”

The Philippines formally cut ties with the ICC on March 17, 2019, or a year after the country formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the Rome Statute.

“And so, it’s really a question of jurisdiction and we have our own investigations and we’re capable of conducting our own investigations and, so we are, we are continuing to do so,” President Marcos told Scholz.

“But as a matter of principle, it is very difficult for the Philippines to accept that an outside court will, shall I say, dictate to our policemen, ‘who they will investigate, who they will arrest and who will say, that hey, because we don’t need that advice’,” he added.

The President said “there are too many lawyers in the Philippines already” for the ICC to still intervene.

President Marcos sat in a bilateral meeting with Scholz on Tuesday in Berlin, which coincided with the 70th anniversary of Philippines-Germany diplomatic relations that was formally established on October 8, 1954. (PND)