Rodrigo Roa Duterte panicked.
Late Friday, he heard from the grapevine that the three-person Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands had issued an arrest warrant against him dated March 7, 2025 and marked “Secret.”
Duterte made a quick trip to Hong Kong Saturday, his wife and young daughter in tow, along with a battery of lawyers, led by his former executive secretary Salvador Medialdea, ostensibly to speak before a PDP-Laban rally for OFWs in the Special Administrative Region of China, his benefactor and backer.
Digong was supposed to endorse his ragtag senatorial team. But his two leading senatorial candidates, reelectionists Bong Go and Bato dela Rosa, were absent at the rally.
Monday morning all seemed quiet. So the former president booked a return flight to Manila for Tuesday. Bato dela Rosa had gone into hiding. Late Monday, Go secured an ambulance from Cardinal Santos Medical Center to fetch a returning Duterte Tuesday morning so the 79-year-old The Punisher could have a medical checkup. All previous accused presidents sought medical care. Bad move, the return.
Tuesday morning. Duterte never managed to get out to public view of the NAIA Terminal 3 building. Planeside of his CX flight, around 9:20 a.m., he was met by his arresting officers, from Interpol, the Philippine Center for International Crime and from the PNP Criminal and Investigation Group headed by Director Major Gen. Nicolas Torre. The 15-page ICC arrest warrant was unsealed and the charges against him read.
Forthwith, suspect Duterte was whisked to nearby Villamor Air Base VIP Lounge where he waited for more than 12 hours for his 18-hour flight by private Gulfstream G550 jet to Netherlands, to face the music. A late Tuesday (4 p.m.) petition at the Supreme Court, filed by Duterte and Senator Bato, failed to stop the 11:03 p.m. Tuesday flight to Dubai on the way to Rotterdam. The petition claimed the ICC warrant and request for assistance were “illegal intrusion into the country’s sovereignty.”
The ICC arrest warrant against Duterte cites “crimes against humanity (CAH) allegedly committed between Nov. 1, 2011 (when Duterte was Davao city mayor) and March 16, 2019 (Duterte was already president) when the Philippines was under the ICC jurisdiction. There are reasonable grounds to believe that the elements of the crimes against humanity of murder are met and committed in the Philippines during Nov. 1, 2011 to March 16, 2019 (the Relevant Period), says the warrant.
Duterte withdrew from the ICC jurisdiction, as a State Party, effective as of March 17, 2019.
Basically, the crime is murder (of between 7,640, per PNP, and 30,000, per human rights groups), committed by attacking a civilian population “pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack.”
The warrant cites “reasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court, and the arrest of the person appears necessary.” Narrates the arrest warrant:
“The Davao Death Squad (‘DDS’) members and the Philippine law enforcement personnel targeted a very large number of persons allegedly involved in criminal activities, in particular drug-related ones… There was a course of conduct involving the commission of multiple acts against the civilian population on the territory of the Philippines. Moreover, these violent acts were initially committed by the DDS and subsequently by different governmental authorities and organs, pursuant to a policy aiming at putting an end to the criminality in the Philippines by all means, including killings of alleged criminals.”
An “attack” was directed at a civilian population while Duterte was head of the DDS and was a State policy while he was the president.
“Moreover, there are reasonable grounds to believe that this attack was both widespread and systematic. The attack took place over a period of several years, and thousands of people appear to have been killed… The killings shared common features, such as the location and modus operandi, including the method of killing, the profiles of victims and the profiles of perpetrators.”
When Mr. Duterte first became the mayor of Davao City in 1998, he established the “Lambada Boys,” which acted as a “death squad,” composed of police officers and non-police hitmen, with a mission to kill criminals. In the early 1990s, the Lambada Boys were renamed “Davao Death Squad.”
“Duterte, jointly with high-ranking government officials and members of the police force (the ‘co-perpetrators’) and through other persons, agreed to ‘neutralize’ individuals they identified as alleged criminals or individuals with criminal propensities, including but not limited to drug offenders, initially in Davao and subsequently throughout the country. The word ‘neutralize’ was used and understood by those involved in the operations to mean to ‘kill’.” This agreement had the aim of “address[ing] the growing criminality” by “kill[ing criminals] in a very covert and secret manner without stick[ing] to the basic law enforcement or investigation, which had allegedly proven ineffective in eliminating or reducing the crimes.”
“Duterte had de facto control over the DDS, which was organized in a hierarchal manner, with the physical perpetrators at the bottom and Mr. Duterte at the top of the reporting line. His influence was further reinforced by the fact that, as the mayor of the city, he had control over the police in the city with the power to direct the functions of police investigation, employ and deploy units or elements of the police and choose the Davao City police chief.”
The trial of Duterte, who turns 80 this March 28, could take years, even decades. Conviction could result in jail of as long as 30 years, or life. Plus compensation for the victims.
Duterte may never see the light of day in the Philippines. He will die a lonely man abroad, behind bars.
However, per ICC rules, death will mean RIP for CAH.
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