Duterte Arrest a New phase in Duterte-Marcos rivalry
Decision to let ICC arrest former president has imponderable ramifications
By: Viswa Nathan
At long last, the International Criminal Court has got the former Philippine President Rodrigo R. Duterte into custody to stand trial for the crimes against humanity he is alleged to have committed with the war on drugs he unleashed as head of state, and previously as mayor of his hometown, Davao City.
Arrested on March 11 at the Manila airport on his return from an election campaign sortie to visit supporters among the tens of thousands of Filipina domestic workers in Hong Kong with the help of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), he has been taken to The Hague in the Netherlands to stand trial.
This process of bringing Duterte to the bar of justice has served as a slap on the knuckles of the incumbent Philippine leader, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr although it is also a convenient way of getting rid of the head of a potent political clan out to extinguish the Marcos family’s plans for a permanent ruling dynasty. The ICC steps into human rights cases only when the country concerned is unable or unwilling to act. In this case, the latter was the reason. Duterte was arrested on an ICC warrant that the Interpol presented to the Philippine National Police (PNP), which the PNP was obliged to execute.
So, if anyone gloats claiming, as did Congressman Robert Ace Barbers, that arresting Duterte “is proof that in this country no one is above the law,” they should think again.
Marcos had plenty of time to think over the matter and opt for a course that would avoid putting the country's sovereignty into question. The ICC has been looking into Duterte’s human rights record since 2018, his second year in office, and four years before Marcos succeeded Duterte. Besides, as the senior vice chairperson of the quad committee, Rep. Romeo Acop, noted the congressional committee hearings, where Duterte testified under oath, had uncovered tracks to a “grand criminal enterprise” with Duterte at the center of it.
But Marcos opted for expediency, and used it as a political chip rather than acting righteously as he was expected to as a statesman.
Winning the presidency with Duterte’s daughter Sara as his running mate, Marcos was adamant that Manila would not cooperate with the ICC. Both he and his justice secretary, Jesus Crispin Remulla, have repeatedly said so, citing that the country was no longer a part of the International Criminal Court, since Duterte had pulled the Philippines out of the Rome Statute as the Court began inquiring into his suspected human rights violations. But then, as the Marcos-Duterte partnership soured leading to Vice President Sara Duterte resigning from the Marcos Cabinet, and her father publicly calling the president a drug addict and a son of a whore, Marcos shifted his position.
The Marcos government initially said it wouldn’t cooperate with the ICC, but said in late 2024 it would comply with any arrest warrant. Its justice minister told Reuters in January the government was open to cooperating with the international body. Later, the Philippine National Police said that as a member of the Interpol, it is obliged to cooperate with the Interpol to carry out any arrest warrant.
It was expediency through and through, not statesmanship, said an independent observer following the Duterte-Marcos spat.
Duterte accepted that this was a fate which he could not avoid. His best option, therefore, was to face the local court where, as Asia Sentinel noted on November 4, he could hope for a lenient verdict under what the Philippine Daily Inquirer called the nation’s “bendable laws.” Except for two associate justices, the entire Supreme Court bench comprises Duterte appointees. But Marcos chose not to grant him the benefit of that possibility.
Now that he has to face the ICC, Duterte has only one option, which he has always held firmly. That is, he did not go on a killing spree for personal joy or the benefit of his family. He did it to “protect” the people he was elected to serve.
As mayor, he imposed a street curfew in Davao and banned drinking and smoking in public places. Thus, he transformed Davao, notes Britannica, from a lawless city to among the safest in Southeast Asia. His methods for this transformation, which earned him the moniker “the punisher,” were undoubtedly cruel and undemocratic. Still, the ICC could find itself hard put to prove him guilty. Duterte could argue that he had the mandate to do what he did.
From the very start of his election campaign for the presidency in 2016, he had emphasized that he hated drugs and drug pushers, and he would go after them if elected. More than 16.6 million Filipinos, representing 39 percent of those who participated in the 2016 election, accepted it and voted him into office.
So Duterte could argue that his presidential mandate was to protect the country and its people from the evils of dangerous drugs. “Do not question my policies,” he told the Senate committee. “I offer no apologies, no excuses. I did what I had to do, and whether you believe it or not, I did it for my country."
A day before his arrest, Duterte was in Hong Kong addressing a large gathering of Filipino citizens to win support for his senatorial candidates in the mid-term election in May. The crowd represented a substantial vote bank. Some 60,000 had voted in the 2022 presidential election. He told them that if he is arrested and detained, so be it. “If this is my fate in life…I will accept it. There’s nothing we can do.”
Then, he asked: “What have I done wrong? I did everything during my time so Filipinos can have peace and security.” He went on: Irrespective of the claim, why did he do it? “For myself? For my family? No, for you and your children, for our country.”
Some political pundits had speculated that Duterte’s trip to Hong Kong was to avoid the ICC arresting him and that he would seek the help of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping to remain in Hong Kong or move to another place in China, as the country is not a member of the ICC. But he proved them wrong.
As human rights groups welcomed the arrest and families of the drug war victims celebrated, Duterte supporters held a candlelight vigil in Davao and one of his chief disciples, Sen. Ronald dela Rosa went to the Supreme Court to question the arrest.
For Duterte, this is not the end; this is the beginning of a new firestorm for undermining the Marcos administration and the political future of the Marcos clan.
Viswa Nathan is Asia Sentinel’s Philippines correspondent
It'll be awfully hard to know let alone prove that Rodrigo Duterte went to Hong Kong not just to raise his popularity among Filipino expatriates, who are all too often exploited and marginalized in places like Hong Kong and Malaysia, but to [also] seek political and criminal refuge either there or somewhere in China on the grace of emperor Xi Jinping. That said, it's not beyond the realm of possibilities if Duterte's criminal mind is an indicator of his cowardice. When he was in power his blustering was often conducted under the skirts of his band of corrupt and murderous Davao criminals as he did elsewhere in the Philippines, especially with the protection of his equally corrupt and criminal sections of the country's police. Let's see him bluster his way out of his criminal accusation of allegedly having murdered in cold blood more than 30,000 drug suspects and innocent Filipinos, all on the pretense of wiping out the drug scourge that, among other things, that has long rendered the country Southeast Asia's basketcase. Personally I hope he is found guilty and, if it were possible, either hung by the neck till he's dead or shot down like the murderous, uncouth, lying, heinous dog that he is.
Whatever wranglings that may have happened behind the scenes on Marcos Jr's apprehensions of acting or not acting on the ICC's arrest warrant will sooner or later be known. At this time there's a lot of speculation and there's little point in adding to Viswa Nathan's. I'm not shooting the messenger but merely stating some facts that in the space of a day I've read so much conjectures emanating from so many so-called experts that I can't at this time tell truth from fiction and I have no doubt there are those who want to show they have a scoop or inside running when I doubt they really do.
The most important questions going forward is the extent the ICC has irrefutable evidence to nail Duterte good and proper or if there are substantial gaps in their evidence against Duterte that the dog is set free, perhaps on one or more legal technicalities. This I think may be a case that could, like Slobodan Milošević's war crimes trial in The Hague in the early part of the 2000s though not by the ICC but the International criminal Tribunal.
Meantime, there is enough evidence to suggest Duterte has failed to resolve crime and criminality that had been flourishing in the Philippines for more than a decade, spurred in no small part by Marcos Sr and his wife Imelda, both of whom were criminals and liars in their own right and who had been siphoning Philippines wealth at the expense of ordinary Filipinos. In fact, I'd go so far as the suggest the Duterte brandished even worse crimes and criminalities amongst Filipino thugs and arming them to the hilt whilst licensing them to commit wanton murder and other hideous forms of thuggery. He was the Filipino president and mafia boss of the Philippines who'd advocated violence of the worst kinds, from assassinations to bombings to open shooting murders in Philippines streets and backroads. Along with his equally criminally minded daughter Sara, it would pay to expand investigations to determine the extent to which either he or both of them have perpetrated embezzlement of the people's wealth a la the senior Marcoses. Leave no stone unturned.
It's scary whilst also diabolically fascinating that his supporters go on bended knees to pray for him and kiss Duterte's filthy criminal ass, especially as the majority of Filipinos still live wretched lives in dire structural poverty and Duterte and his daughter hadn't so much as lifted a finger to reverse their poverty-stricken lives. It's also one reason why Filipinos continue to seek their livelihoods abroad where they are constantly exploited, marginalized and their human rights either disparaged or taken away by those counties' corrupt authorities, especially, as I know, by immigration authorities and their ruthless, apathetic employers in the domestic help sector.
All of which leaves Marcos Jr with pressing questions for answers about what he's doing for his people apart from sitting on his ass and playing politics whilst amassing private wealth, paticularly from their holdings of real estate in the Philippines and abroad.