By Artchil B. Fernandez
Finally, the sword of Damocles fell. Finally, the wheel of justice started grinding. Finally, the victims are seeing the light of day. Finally, the long-awaited day has come.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte is now safely tucked in The Hague. This is a hard-to-imagine scenario. While this is the wish of many Filipinos, they also concede its improbability. Yet the unlikely is now a reality.
At 11:03 p.m. on March 11, 2025, the Duterte patriarch left the Philippines on a chartered flight for The Hague. The long road to justice for the victims of the bloody and gory war has begun.
Talks on the imminent arrest of the former president had been circulating for more than a year. Every time such talks swirled around the country, nothing happened. The nation was placed in suspended animation whenever the arrest rumors surfaced.
To recall, the elder Duterte is facing charges for alleged crimes against humanity in connection with the flagship program of his administration—the brutal and ruthless war against illegal drugs—before the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague, Netherlands.
The investigation started in 2018 when then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced a preliminary examination into crimes against humanity related to the Philippine drug war. The action enraged Duterte, who withdrew the country’s membership from the ICC in 2019 to forestall prosecution.
The withdrawal from the Rome Statute, however, did not prevent the ICC from continuing its investigation into the Philippine situation. The ICC pre-trial chamber authorized a full investigation in 2021. It covered the period from 2016 to 2019, when the country was a member of the ICC.
The Philippine government appealed the decision, but it was rejected by the ICC in January 2023. Current ICC prosecutor Karim Khan resumed the investigation into the Philippine situation in July 2023. With the resumption of the investigation, talks of an arrest warrant being issued for Rodrigo Duterte started to circulate.
Complementing the arrest rumors is the shifting stance of the current administration on the issue. At the beginning of his term, when Bongbong Marcos (BBM) and the Dutertes were still allies, he adopted a hardline position against the ICC investigation into the war on drugs. There was no cooperation with the ICC probe.
But as the UniTeam unraveled, BBM’s administration started to change its stance. From a firm rejection, the present administration softened its position by expressing openness to the ICC investigation.
In January this year, the administration declared that should an ICC arrest warrant against the former president be coursed through the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), it would be compelled to cooperate. That was the clearest signal of the complete turnaround of the current administration.
Last week, another story about Rodrigo Duterte’s impending arrest in relation to the ICC swamped the country. People, tired of the recurring buzz, blandly received the news. Even families of the victims of the war on drugs and their supporters showed little enthusiasm, skeptical of its veracity. The ICC website, where such information is usually posted, remained silent on the matter.
The Duterte camp, however, claimed it received a reliable tip that an ICC arrest warrant for the former president was imminent.
In his talk with supporters in Hong Kong, Duterte addressed the ICC and the rumored arrest warrant. He played the victim before the sympathetic audience, claiming that his actions in the war on drugs were for the country.
“What was my sin?” Duterte asked his supporters. “I did everything in my time so Filipinos could have a little peace and tranquillity.”
But upon his return to the country, Rodrigo Duterte’s worst nightmare became real. He was arrested on the strength of an arrest warrant issued by the ICC and coursed through Interpol.
By nightfall on the day of his arrest, Duterte was shipped off to The Hague. It happened so fast that Filipinos were stunned. The sight of the former president on trial for crimes against humanity in The Hague seemed surreal.
One tragic irony of Duterte’s arrest was the reading of his rights—something he denied to thousands of Filipinos slaughtered in his war on drugs.
His supporters invoked “due process” and “human rights,” concepts they had previously disparaged and derided at the height of their tatay’s war on drugs. The hypocrisy is outrageous.
Fate played a cruel joke on the Dutertes. They worked hard for BBM’s victory in the 2022 election to prevent and thwart an ICC arrest and handover. They feared that a victory for the hated pinklawans would mark a day of reckoning, certain that their patriarch would be hounded and thrown to foreign wolves. The triumph of UniTeam secured the elder Duterte’s safety—or so they thought—believing he was beyond the ICC’s reach.
It turned out that the Dutertes didn’t have to fear the loathed pinklawans but rather their erstwhile allies—the Marcoses. This week, BBM’s administration turned over Rodrigo Duterte to the ICC. Back in 2022, the Dutertes never imagined this scenario, even in their wildest thoughts. In the end, it was the Marcoses—not the reviled pinklawans—who dispatched the Duterte patriarch to The Hague. The Dutertes are now biting their elbows.
While the Dutertes and their supporters are bitter and feel betrayed, the rest of the nation is rejoicing—especially the families of the victims of the war on drugs. It took almost nine years for Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and extradition to The Hague to happen. The nearly decade-long wait was fraught with pain, frustration, and difficulties, leaving many to lose hope that this day would ever come. But the words of Martin Luther King Jr. offered comfort: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
The hardest part has begun in the long trek to justice. The trial proper takes time. But Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and trial are already a victory—albeit not yet final.
