SPEAKING at the House of Representatives during the Quad committee hearings last year, former President Rodrigo Duterte told the International Criminal Court to hurry up and arrest him already.
Yesterday he got what he asked for — not immediately, but still.
The ICC did release an arrest warrant, months after. It was served Tuesday as Duterte landed back in Manila from his political party’s gathering with overseas Filipino workers in Hong Kong. The Philippine Center on Transnational Crime, assisted by the Philippine National Police, implemented an Interpol Notice for his arrest.
What irony, when just a few years ago it was the PNP, with Duterte at the helm of government, implementing the so-called war on drugs that targeted the poor and the powerless.
By now, we should know better than to take what the former strongman says at face value. During his last flight as a free man, Duterte muttered something about having to kill him first before he subjects to the authority of the West. In a video interview he gave to his allied network SMNI, just before flying back, he insisted he did not recall doing anything wrong. He may have done many things that people did not like, he said, but he did it all for the country.
Some Duterte loyalists have cried foul, citing Duterte’s advanced age, precarious health, and rumored hunger. A senator who owes his popularity to Duterte’s endorsement and his own posturing as his wingman was seen waving a pizza box in the air, asking it be given to his benefactor. Another former official, a disgraced spokesperson who himself is in hiding as he refused to shed light on the probe into POGOs, had the gall to call on Duterte supporters to amass on EDSA. Other clowns are volunteering to be arrested alongside Duterte.
As of this writing, the former President is being held at Villamor Airbase. The next steps will become apparent in the next few hours, we believe, even as the situation is unprecedented and we are only going by what the rules say should happen.
What should ideally happen is for the trek to justice to finally begin.
The Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute took effect March 2019, a full year after the Duterte administration gave notice to the ICC. Still, the withdrawal does not affect proceedings that had been ongoing prior to its effectivity, and this is why there remains a case to be made: proceedings with regard to the Philippine situation began in Feb. 2018. Duterte can deride the ICC as a white man’s court, but it does not just represent one country or one race. It is an agreement by the international community to no longer stand idle as injustices against the people are committed on a wide scale.
And now that he got his wish, it is time to work toward the wish of the families of those who were killed upon his orders, explicit or implied. We will follow this case to its rightful end, not because of differences in political color but because of the thousands of lives that were snuffed out in the cruelest and most senseless manner.
Let that sink in every time the former President’s followers attempt to make a hero or a martyr out of their idol.
