Recalling the death of an anti-Duterte lawyer

By Herbert Vego

DO you remember Jude Sabio, the lawyer from Misamis Oriental who first filed a complaint against President Rodrigo Duterte for crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in April 2017, only to withdraw it in 2020?

It has been five years since Sabio passed away at age 57 on April 13, 2021, allegedly due to cardiac arrest after a bout with COVID-19. This was not well tackled in the media, probably because any contrary opinion could harm any journalist.

But I remember a statement heard from Sabio’s cousin Emmanuel, doubting the authenticity of the medical report.

Was the COVID-19 angle merely contrived as the culprit because the disease was prevalent in the month of his death?

As a columnist of Mindanao Gold Star Daily, the lawyer had been writing that the virus was merely a flu, and the pandemic was a product of a global conspiracy. But that’s diverting away from our topic.

In April 2017, Jude Sabio submitted a 77-page complaint at the ICC, alleging that President Duterte had “repeatedly, unchangingly and continuously” committed extra-judicial executions or mass murders over three decades.

He said that the killings of thousands of people began in 1988 when Duterte was mayor of Davao City and continued throughout his presidency.

Sabio relied mostly on the confession of his client, Edgar Matobato, a “repentant” man who had testified in the Senate that he was part ofthe Davao Death Squad (DDS) that killed criminals, political opponents and journalists on Duterte’s orders.

The same document carried the narrative of retired police officer Arturo Lascanas, another hitman, that he had personally killed “about 200 people,” also as a member of the DDS.

The pro-Duterte Senate dismissed the credibility of Matobato and Lascanas.

Now let us see why on January 14, 2020, Atty Sabio suddenly announced his intention to recant his 2017 ICC complaint against President Duterte, but with no substantial ground.

Indeed, he recanted in a sworn statement that he personally handed to ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, asking that his complaint be “set aside and thrashed for being just a part of the political propaganda orchestrated by former Senators Antonio Trillanes and Leila de Lima.”

“I would be given a pittance when they needed me for the political propaganda,” he told the Daily Inquirer, “And then later I would be told that there was no more budget due to financial constraints.”

But the ICC replied that Sabio’s complaint could not be withdrawn once received and would not affect the preliminary examination.

Duterte’s supporters called Sabio “a political stooge, a front man for one of Duterte’s detractors, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV.”

One could only imagine Digong — detained at the ICC jail for one year and a month already — gnashing his teeth.

Anyway, how could Trillanes have manipulated Sabio when he and Rep. Alejano had by then filed a separate ICC complaint against Duterte?

It was in June 2017 – two months after Sabio filed his case against Duterte – that former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and former Magdalo Representative Gary Alejano filed a supplemental complaint against Duterte at the ICC for extra-judicial killings related to his war on drugs.

So, do you think that the Atty. Sabio died of either heart attack or Covid-19?

Or was he assassinated?

In a Facebook post after Sabio’s death, Trillanes wrote, “Atty. Jude Sabio was a good man, but like all of us, he had a vulnerability. May he rest in peace.”

Trillanes is expected to stand as one of the witnesses if and when the ICC decides to proceed with Duterte’s impeachment trial, which could be a few days from now.