Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte made his first appearance before the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague on Friday after being arrested this week on charges of crimes against humanity.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan — a prolific targeter of former and current heads of state — is accusing Duterte of mass murder during a campaign to eradicate drug crime in the country while he was president. Duterte served as president from 2016 to 2022; Philippine presidents are only allowed to serve one term in office.
The Philippines was a longtime signatory to the Rome Statute, which gives the ICC jurisdiction over a country for the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Duterte withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2018, but the ICC prosecutor’s office claims that the crimes for which it is prosecuting him occurred before the withdrawal.
Duterte spent much of his time in office threatening to kill a variety of people, though his usual targets were priests — he claimed to have been molested by a priest as a child and “cured” himself of homosexuality — and drug traffickers. In June 2016, Duterte announced a program to offer “a medal” to civilians who killed suspected drug dealers, encouraging vigilante justice. However, his main form of targeting drug suspects was the use of “death squads,” according to the ICC and extensive evidence compiled by human rights groups. Philippine police officials estimated that over 6,000 people were killed extrajudicially during the drug war under Duterte, who claimed that those who were killed resisted arrest.
“On the basis of its independent and impartial investigations, the Office of the Prosecutor alleges that Mr. Duterte, as founder and head of the Davao Death Squad, then Mayor of Davao City, and subsequently as the President of the Philippines,” the ICC detailed in its statement on Duterte’s arrest, “is criminally responsible for the crime against humanity of murder… committed in the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019.”
“Mr. Duterte is alleged to have committed these crimes as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population,” the ICC claimed.
Throughout much of his tenure, Duterte referred to human rights criticism as “bullshit” propagated by “white people” and threatened to kill human rights investigators. He has also referred to the ICC specifically as “bullshit” and in 2016, he threatened to burn down the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Duterte, 79, was mostly silent during his hearing on Friday, which served to lay out the charges against him and offer his legal team a reading of his rights as a defendant.
“Sounding frail and wearing a blue suit and tie, he spoke briefly to confirm his name and date of birth,” the Filipino news outlet ABS-CBN detailed. They explained, “The presiding judge allowed him to follow proceedings in absentia due to his long flight to The Hague.”
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan requested an arrest warrant for Duterte on February 10. He was arrested on Tuesday and flown to the Hague, the headquarters of the ICC, immediately thereafter. His supporters have questioned the timing of the arrest, claiming that Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. acted vindictively to have Duterte arrested after his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, announced in a dramatic, late-night livestream in December that she had hired hitmen to kill the president and his family in the event that Marcos assassinated her.
“I’ve given my order, ‘If I die, don’t stop until you’ve killed them,’” Sara Duterte claimed, referring to the president and his family, repeatedly insisting her plans to kill Marcos were “no joke.”
Duterte was impeached less than a week before the ICC prosecutor requested a warrant for her father. Sara Duterte, who is currently in the Hague supporting her father, declared his arrest and extradition a violation of Filipino sovereignty.
“Today, our own government has surrendered a Filipino citizen — even a former President at that — to foreign powers,” she wrote in a public statement on Tuesday. “This is a blatant affront to our sovereignty and an insult to every Filipino who believes in our nation’s independence.”
“This is not justice — this is oppression and persecution. This act shows the world that this government is willing to abandon its own citizen and betray the very essence of our sovereignty and national dignity. God save the Philippines,” she concluded.
The arrest has prompted widespread protests, in the Philippines and the Hague, in support of Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte’s supporters say that his campaign against drug trafficking was necessary due to the uncontrolled nature of organized gang crime and the destruction that drugs — particularly methamphetamine, or shabu — had brought to the nation’s youth.
The Philippine SunStar reported that about 5,000 people gathered in Cebu City, the Philippines, on Thursday night calling to pray for Duterte in anticipation of his hearing. The event was described as a “prayer rally” in which attendees sang patriotic songs and gave addresses calling for an end to the ICC legal proceeding.
“Come out and show who truly holds power in the Philippines. We believe in the power of the people, not the people in power,” Irene Ann Caballes, a protest organizer, told the newspaper. “This will not go away until we bring him back home.”
Writing at the Philippine Star, columnist Ana Marie Pamintuan on Friday suggested that Duterte’s arrest was “justice,” but only brought about by an especially dirty and violent family feud between the Dutertes and Marcoses — and detailed years of similar incidents in which the country’s most powerful families vied for power by weaponizing each other’s human rights weaknesses.
“If Sara Duterte had not picked a fight with the Marcos-Araneta-Romualdez clan and the UniTeam hadn’t broken up, would her father be in The Hague right now, waiting to be tried by the ‘white people’ in the International Criminal Court?” Pamintuan asked.
“Because of structural weaknesses in our legal system, justice is often made possible only when political warfare erupts,” she concluded. “It’s not an ideal situation, but we don’t have the luxury of being picky in the paths to accountability. We take what we can.”
Amid the prosecution, Duterte is currently running for mayor of Davao City, the city where he held that title for decades before running for president. The Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) confirmed on Wednesday that its rules do not bar Duterte from running for mayor while being prosecuted by the ICC.
“As far as the Comelec is concerned he (Duterte) remains, as of now, a candidate. His name remains in the ballot and can be voted upon by our countrymen [in Davao City],” Comelec chair George Erwin Garcia told reporters.
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