Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport on Tuesday (March 11) morning, after the government received the official warrant for his arrest by the International Criminal Court.
The bombshell arrest comes after months of rumors the ICC was about to move on Duterte, despite the court remaining coy on when the warrant would be issued. The former president seemed resigned to his fate during a visit to Hong Kong on the weekend, telling media he was ready to be arrested on his return to the Philippines.
The ICC has been probing the former president since 2017 and has now accused Duterte of committing crimes against humanity during his presidency between 2016 and 2022. This includes his “war on drugs” that unleashed years of deadly anti-drug operations and vigilante violence across the Philippines that human rights groups claim killed up to 30,000 people.
The move was made despite Duterte formally withdrawing the Philippines from the court in 2019, in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the investigation. Current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr had until now also stubbornly refused to cooperate, saying in January last year he would not “lift a finger” to help the ICC.
But Marcos Jr appears to have bowed to the inevitable, with his administration now holding his predecessor in custody in an airbase in Manila.
Duterte now appears destined for trial and would only be the second former head of state to end up at The Hague. But unlike the acquittal of former Côte d’Ivoire president Laurent Gbagbo in 2019, the evidence is stacked against the former Philippine president.
Duterte has always been unapologetic about his role in igniting the drug war, making several damning public statements that demonized drug users and pushers and fuelled widespread violence under his watch.
During the 2016 election campaign, Duterte darkly promised what was to come, claiming 100,000 people would die in his crackdown, with so many dead bodies dumped in Manila Bay that fish there would grow fat from feeding on them.
Duterte also bizarrely claimed he had killed people himself while mayor of Davao City, telling media he had personally killed suspected criminals while “cruising the streets on a motorcycle looking for trouble.”
The intention – according to Duterte – was to “show to the guys (police officers} that if I can do it, why can’t you?”
Duterte used his inaugural press conference as president to urge people to kill drug addicts and vowed to wipe out drug traffickers. Duterte told his audience that “if you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.”
Months later – in September 2016 – Duterte appeared to compare himself to Hitler and drug addicts to Jews murdered during the Holocaust, saying “Hitler massacred three million Jews … there’s three million drug addicts. There are. I’d be happy to slaughter them.”
Duterte also publicly tried to protect the police from accountability, offering to pay the legal fees of any officer accused of extrajudicial killings.
This came after an Amnesty International report in 2017 showed police used unverified lists of drug suspects to raid homes and shoot unarmed people, including those prepared to surrender.
More recently, Duterte admitted to a parliamentary hearing last year his administration provided funds and incentives to police officers who conducted anti-drug operations. This came after former police Colonel Royina Garma testified the former president offered police up to US$17,000 to kill suspects during the war on drugs.
The question now is whether Marcos Jr is willing to hand Duterte over to the ICC for trial, something the president was unlikely to do just months ago.
Despite the withdrawal from the ICC and Marcos Jr’s refusal to rejoin, the court has maintained jurisdiction over crimes committed while the Philippines was a member.
This includes the drug war, and delivering Duterte to The Hague is a chance for Marcos Jr to live up to the promise he made to the United Nations his administration would respect international law,
Polling also shows Filipinos support the probe into Duterte, so cooperating with the ICC would give Marcos Jr a political boost before midterm elections in May. With a February survey revealing 43% of Filipinos were dissatisfied with his performance, holding Duterte accountable would help make the president look strong in the eyes of Filipinos. Duterte had planned to run for mayor of his hometown of Davao, which may or may not now happen.
The arrest of Duterte also gives Marcos Jr the chance to end the drug war for good, something he has promised and largely failed to do since he was elected in 2022. The president has implemented policies focusing on education and rehabilitation, but people continue to be killed in anti-drug operations under his watch.
While not a fait accompli, a Duterte trial and conviction at The Hague would allow Filipinos to move past a dark chapter in their country’s history and give victims and their families a belated form of at least partial justice.
