Duterte’s defense in the ICC

The International Criminal Court (ICC) proceedings in The Hague for the confirmation of charges against Duterte for crimes against humanity were really interesting, informative, and educational. While I did not watch all the livestream screening as I had to go to work and earn a living, I had seen some of the other footage in social media, and read the coverage of the main newspapers enough to write an opinion.

There are actually two courts and/or two set of judges that have to be convinced by the prosecution and defense lawyers in the preparatory hearings, and in the eventual trial (if it proceeds). These are the ICC court judges and the people in the court of public opinion. The ICC judges’ decision matters most, as it means the continued detention of Duterte or his release. But equally as important, is the public perception of his guilt or innocence regardless of the ICC court’s decision. In these times of pervasive social media breadth and speed of real and fake news, public perception may have a bigger significance.

The Filipino and European prosecution lawyers did a very good job of presenting just enough evidence, reasons, and justifications to confirm the charges and proceed to the main trial. The compelling proof and evidence of the killings, the written, verbal, and visual exhibits of the organized, systematic and structured implementation of mass murder were orderly shown and presented.

Duterte’s own words in the videos and in the printed pictures with specific names were shown, together with statements of some of the actual killers. The penchant of Duterte to regale his audiences in his public speeches, with his orders and stories of the killings, while denied and assailed by his defense lawyers as hyperbole and exaggerations, cannot be set aside easily. These preserved videos of Duterte’s public speeches were probably most damaging for his defense.

The Duterte defense team led by Kaufman are/were good in their defense and rebuttal arguments. They had detailed objections on specific evidences and competently side stepped damaging issues. They deserve their million-dollar fees. Without denying the actual massive killings, which are hard to refute with the physical evidence presented, their main defense is that the killings were incidental or part of the normal policing actions of the law enforcement authorities against drug lords and other criminals. They argued that there was no Duterte executive order or policy for an organized, systematic plan and implementation of the thousands who were killed in Davao and in the whole Philippines.

The Duterte defense team also harped on the circumstances of the arrest, his frail physical and mental condition, the anguish of his family and the continuing support of his constituents, including his resignation to his fate and the possibility of his death in jail. The articulate Kaufman’s closing statements was impressive in approach and sentiment, but it will be the ICC judges and the public who will decide if these are enough to refute and forget the deaths and the agony of the relatives of the victims.

               The ICC has 60 days to come up with the decision to proceed or not proceed with the trial. It is hard to predict which way the decision will go. Still, for the public especially the Filipino people, the presentation of the evidence for the whole world to see is already partial victory. Whether a full trial and more detailed testimonies and evidence will follow, we will not know until May of this year.