STATEMENT ON PRESIDENT MARCOS JR.'s DECISION NOT TO REJOIN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

"I am in full support of the President's decision not to rejoin the ICC.

It is reflective of the two cornerstones of our sovereignty as a State: independent foreign policy and national security. The right to be an equal member in the comity of nations is reflective of our sovereignty as a nation.

Our national courts should have the primacy in dispensing justice and this is even recognized by the ICC's own "complementarity principle."

We thus associate ourselves with other nations like the United States, India and China in refusing to annex the Rome Statute's sovereignty-diluting mechanisms which is violative of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties."

- SEN. FRANCIS 'TOL' N. TOLENTINO
Vice chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations