EU: Freeing ex-senator can help Manila keep trade incentives

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines’ chances of retaining special trading incentives, including slashed tariffs for a wide array of products, would be boosted if it decides to free a long-detained opposition leader and rejoin the International Criminal Court, a group of European parliamentarians said Friday.

The European Union trade incentives under the so-called Generalized Scheme of Preferences, or GSP Plus, for the Philippines and seven other developing countries are anchored on their adherence to more than two dozen international conventions on human and labor rights, environmental protection and good governance.

The trading incentives, which the Philippines started to enjoy in 2014, would end in December and the government could reapply within a two-year period to retain them.

But the Philippines came under intense EU criticism during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s six-year term, which ended last year, mainly because of the bloody anti-drugs crackdown he oversaw that left more than 6,000 mostly petty suspects dead.

The killings sparked an International Criminal Court investigation as a possible crime against humanity. Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC in 2018 but its prosecutor has proceeded to investigate the widespread deaths that occurred in the years when the country was still part of the court based in The Hague.

European parliamentarians have also repeatedly demanded the release of opposition leader and former senator Leila de Lima, Duterte’s most vocal critic who was arrested and detained in 2017 on drug charges she said were fabricated by Duterte and his officials to stop her from investigating the killings.

A delegation of the European Parliament’s sub-committee on human rights visited the Philippines from Wednesday to Friday for...