He has been arrested this Tuesday morning at Manila International Airport by order of the International Criminal Court (TPI), which accuses him of crimes against humanity for his bloody war against drugs. Human Rights Defender Groups ensure that, during this campaign, tens of thousands of people were executed extrajudicially.
The 79 -year -old Filipino leader has been arrested by the police upon his return from Hong Kong, where he was traveling, and is in custody at the Villamor Air Base, as the Filipino government has reported. His legal advisor, Salvador Panelo, has described the arrest as “illegal”, alleging, among other reasons, that the Philippines retired in 2019 of the International Court based in The Hague (Netherlands). In fact, the country had refused until last year to cooperate with the court investigation, arguing that it had no jurisdiction on the case.
“In Tuesday, the Office of the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) of Manila received the official copy of the arrest warrant,” reports the executive of the Asian archipelago. “The former president and his team enjoy good health and a government doctor is examining them,” the text continues, collected by the Filipina PNA news agency. The authorities ensure that the agents of the National Police of the Philippines that executed the arrest warrant were equipped with body cameras to guarantee the transparency of the operation.
Duterte and his companions landed at 09.20, local time (01.20, Spanish peninsular time), at the Ninoy Aquino International Aquino Aquino in Manila. At that time, the attorney general of the country presented the notification of the Court, and the National Security Forces escorted him outside the airport. Minutes before his arrest, the politician was challenging, faithful to his style: “They will have to kill me first,” he said when he got out of the plane, according to local media.
Francis R. Malasig (EFE)
“Move me now the legal basis that I find here,” he heard Duterte say in a video published by the Filipino Rappler medium, in which he is seen sitting in an armchair and with a serious countenance. The atmosphere seems relaxed. “They must respond for this deprivation of my freedom,” he continues.
Although Duterte left politics in 2022, he continues to be one of the most influential figures in the nation (his daughter Sara is currently the vice president) and has enjoyed relative immunity despite the multiple accusations that weigh against him. In Hong Kong, a city that hosts a large Filipina community (it is the most numerous ethnic minority of the city, adding approximately 130,000 people), Duterte had participated in an electoral act prior to the elections of half mandate on May 12.
He became the cornerstone of his administration (2016-2022). His populist message and the promise of exercising hard hand to clean the streets of traffickers and drug addiction led him to the presidency, although multiple experts claimed that the country did not face a disproportionate drug addiction problem. In his campaign closing rally, he urged his electorate to “forget human rights laws.” “Traffickers, thieves and lazy, you better leave you, because I will kill you,” he warned then.
According to official police data, about 6,200 suspects died in the operations, but local and international oenegés raise the figure to more than 30,000. In 2021, the TPI initiated an investigation against him for the extrajudicial executions that occurred between 2011 and 2019, all of them under his term, first as Governor of Davao (2009-2015), the second largest city in the country, and then nationally.
Duterte withdrew Philipins from TPI unilaterally in 2019, a movement that various activists criticized for considering an attempt to avoid accountability. Despite this organism, the Philippines continues to be a member of the Interpol, which has the power to request the arrest of Duterte in the name of the court. The lawyer Filipina Kristina Conti, legal assistant of the Court, points out that the former president must now be delivered to a Member State of the International Court and then to her headquarters in The Hague, Aparte Rappler.
This Tuesday’s arrest is a key step in the search for justice of thousands of Filipinos who have been claiming responsibilities for the death of their relatives for years. Many of them were killed by police, hitmen and guards of vigilantes without even receiving a trial, they denounce. Local activists ensure that the majority of the victims of the bloody campaign were people of few economic resources in urban areas, many of them minors and citizens without links with drug trafficking.
However, it is not yet clear if Duterte will be delivered to the International Court, an issue that could trigger a legal and political confrontation within the Philippines herself. The case will also be a decisive evidence for the TPI, since it will measure the body’s ability to enforce its jurisdiction against leaders who have tried to avoid international justice. This court has also requested arrest orders against Israeli prime minister, Benjamín Netanyahu, for Gaza genocide; Against Vladimir Putin and the high positions that planned the invasion of Ukraine, and against MIN Aung-Hlaing, the head of the Military Board of Myanmar and responsible for the brutal coup d’etat that has plunged the country into the deepest chaos since 2021.
