All that happened was that there were two activists victims’ representatives by the names of Joel Butuyan and Kristina Conti, who made all sorts of assertions in the press that I had asked to restrict victims participation in the process by limiting the ID documents that could be used. He added: “All I was doing was relying on what the Philippines Social Security System requires for ID to be verified in the Philippines.” Kaufman was referring to their camp’s “observations” which they submitted to the ICC’s Victims Participation and Reparations Sector (VPRS), a section in the international tribunal that is responsible for assisting victims in participating in proceedings and applying for reparations if a conviction occurs. This is the response that the defense made to the VPRS, which is the internal court unit, which is responsible for assessing victims applications,” he said. Earlier this week, Butuyan and Conti, who are both ICC-accredited lawyers, applauded the international tribunal’s decision to deny the alleged request of Duterte’s camp to restrict identity documents for participating victims in the drug war. This was echoed by Butuyan in a separate statement, who also questioned the need for Duterte’s camp to ask for IDs now when they “never asked the victims of any form of ID before they decided to shoot and kill them in cold blood." “As one of the counsels helping the families of victims, I welcome the ICC’s resolution denying the defense team’s position that victims should only be recognized if they can show a national ID or passport,” he said. To require victims’ families to produce IDs that are mostly possessed by the rich will transform the ICC trial into a trial against the poor,” he added. Read Full Story
