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Once deemed by most as politically invincible—and by others as “God’s anointed”— Rodrigo Duterte now finds himself imprisoned at The Hague, where he might spend his remaining years. Enforcing a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Philippine police arrested the former president on 11 March at Manila’s main airport as he returned from Hong Kong.
The ICC charged Duterte with crimes against humanity committed during his presidency’s “war on drugs” and when he was mayor of Davao City. It was in these early years as mayor (1998–2008) when he formed and oversaw his motorcycle-riding “Davao Death Squad”, which summarily killed and disappeared over a thousand petty criminals, and which he scaled up nationally after his 2016 election. At the end of his presidency in 2022, the drug war had snuffed out more than 30,000 lives and destroyed alongside them many more livelihoods, most from Manila’s slums.
It is difficult to overstate the historic significance of the ICC’s capture of Duterte. He is the first Philippine leader to be arrested by an international tribunal, which even the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. eluded. The arrest also comes at the heels of two other high-profile cases issued by the ICC on the same charges as Duterte: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Myanmar military junta head Min Aung Hlaing. Those orders, however, are unlikely to succeed, much like the ICC’s 2022 warrant for the arrest of Russia’s Vladimir Putin. As the Court’s most recent custody since 2021, the Philippine leader’s case would thereby test the power of international law.
But most importantly, Duterte’s turn of fate disrupts a current that has coursed through—and defined—generations of Philippine politics: impunity. It marks the end of 27 years, including the three since he left office, of his near impenetrable “rule by law”. After local prosecutions, police investigations, and congressional hearings cowed to Duterte, the ICC’s arrest marks a major step toward cascading accountability and truth.
Upon hearing the news, celebration rippled through Manila civil society. “Today, Duterte is being made to answer”, said Leila De Lima, who led the Philippine Senate’s investigation into the drug war before being jailed by Duterte’s government for nearly seven years, “not to me, but to victims, to their families, to a world that refuses to forget.” Senate opposition leader Risa Hontiveros added, “the day of reckoning has begun.” In Payatas, Quezon City, where many killings took place, victims’ families and their supporters gathered for a “thanksgiving” mass. They marched down the church aisle with portraits of their slain loved ones and laid candles for them at the altar steps.
Human rights groups are right to notch Duterte’s arrest a win—after years of documenting and filing evidence, often at their peril. But it would be premature to declare it justice, as some already have. The ICC is not a panacea, and impunity as a political force has not yet been beaten back. What exactly stands in the way of meaningful and lasting justice?
Defiance and melodrama
During and since the arrest, Duterte and his allies have been characteristically defiant. For them, the true atrocity lies in what they cast as a baldly illegal arrest, orchestrated by the West and abetted by their new political enemy, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and his administration. “You will have to kill me first if you’re going to follow orders from white people”, the former president said as he was escorted off the plane. The ICC is not, in fact, an institution of white jurists: most of its judges are Asian, African, and Latin American; and the pre-trial chamber which ordered Duterte’s arrest includes two from Mexico and Benin. The Court even elected two Filipinos in its history, Judges Raul Pangalangan and Miriam Defensor Santiago.
But facts have never been to the Dutertes’ liking. They prefer melodrama, of which they seem to have infinite supply. The former president’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, claimed her father was being “forcibly taken” in the latest instalment of her family’s “oppression and persecution”. His other daughter, Veronica, took to Instagram, claiming her father was “kidnapped” (one can’t help but think of the Marcoses’ same remark after their 1986 People Power ouster), and that she herself was “harassed” by police who supposedly tore open her blouse.
Veronica also posted a photo of her father asleep on a couch, aided by oxygen tubes. “They are denying my dad the proper healthcare he needs”, her caption read, “They are keeping us confined here and not allowing us to bring him to the hospital. He is getting weaker by the minute.” During his pre-trial hearing last Friday, Duterte’s voice was soft and quivering, and at times he even appeared asleep. His main legal counsel and former Executive Secretary, Salvador Medialdea, pointed to Duterte’s “debilitating” condition. On the one hand, some legal scholars have claimed that there is moral harm in exposing ailing and elderly defendants to justice processes which are taxing and public. At the time of his arrest, however, Duterte was confirmed by government doctors to be in good health; ICC medical staff later said the same.
Spectacles of strong leaders turned frail, aimed at gathering mass sympathy, are far from new: they were famously put on by former presidents Joseph Estrada, who in 2005 spoke of his corruption charges from a hospital bed post-surgery, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who in 2016 appeared in a neck brace and a wheelchair to appeal her electoral fraud case.
Like his daughters, Duterte’s lieutenants staged their own grievances. His closest aide, Senator Bong Go, clashed with police for refusing his pizza delivery at Villamor Air Base at Manila’s international airport, where Duterte was being held before his transfer to The Hague. Former presidential spokesperson, Harry Roque, urged Duterte supporters clamouring outside Villamor to rally along the historic EDSA highway and reenact People Power. Last Saturday, Duterte ally and self-proclaimed “Son of God,” Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, said “divine intervention” is in his prayers. Meanwhile that night, Go made his own appeal to God as he led a tearful crowd in a rendition of the Christian song, You Raise Me Up.
Victimhood as campaigning
These performances of indignation, silly as they may seem, continue to resonate with many Filipinos. Revolution of the likes of 1986 is unlikely. But Duterte’s bailiwick, the southern island of Mindanao, has erupted in daily prayer rallies and unity rides, complete with banners and T-shirt prints demanding the leader’s return. New York City, Hong Kong, Dubai, and The Hague itself also saw protests and candlelight vigils.
The political scientist Wataru Kusaka might say that the ICC has reminded the public of Duterte’s lonely crusade against a machinery of criminal elites. This ruling class, Kusaka has argued, commiserates with the pasaway (undisciplined and “evil others”) over “struggling good citizens.” It is not enough to say then that Duterte metes out moral discipline as he sees fit; he also legitimises and mobilises a moral paranoia—or for Nicole Curato, “latent anxiety”—that people already feel. Ever surrounded by enemies conspiring for themselves, it seems only Duterte and his allies can save the Philippines from itself.
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Through his vulnerability, the former president not only inserts himself among the nation’s masses, but also among its heroes. A day before his arrest, the former president spoke in Hong Kong to Overseas Filipino Workers, one of the largest and rapidly growing voting blocs that swung in his favour. He encouraged supporters to erect a monument of him upon his release from prison, placing him beside the statue of José Rizal, the father of Philippine nationalism. “Rizal is holding a book. As for me…” Duterte said, followed by a hand gesture of a gun. The crowd roared with approval.
As journalist Sheila Coronel puts it, recalling a story Duterte shared of shooting a college bully, the former president is “cast not as the aggressor, but as the aggrieved, resorting to a gun to defend his honor.”
Since 2016, performative victimhood has won the Dutertes handsome electoral gains, so they are expected to double down as the May midterms approach. Duterte himself is vying to return as mayor of Davao City, while his senate endorsements are facing off against President Marcos’ own. Should the Dutertes wrest back Congress, as well as local posts, impunity will have been both a cause and a consequence of their strengthened political hand.
A fuller view of justice?
To be sure, Duterte’s arrest marks a milestone for accountability and truth. The improbability of it all speaks to the tenacity and skill of human rights groups, as ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan noted. But the arrest by itself cannot stand in for justice. As Hannah Arendt famously observed of the Nuremberg Trials, justice is not simply about accountability acts, but also the reach of those called to account. In other words, the rule of law must be capacious. A fuller view of justice—understood here in the retributive sense—addresses low-level perpetrators, not just the crime’s planners and chief enforcers. For the drug war, this means junior police officers and paid vigilantes.
Full justice, however, has been historically difficult to achieve. Due to resource constraints, the ICC and other international tribunals prioritise the prosecution of offenders most responsible. The crimes against humanity charges against Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony in 2005, former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir in 2009 and 2010, and Liberian leader Charles Taylor in 2009 are recent examples.
But for Rwanda after the 1994 genocide, a boost to domestic justice processes helped address the inadequacy in prioritising senior perpetrators (along with aversions to foreign-led processes). Starting in 2005, the Rwandan government created over 12,000 gacaca, or community-driven, courts to account for the loss of 800,000 lives. Run by local judges, gacaca encouraged the participation of ordinary Rwandans so that they themselves dispensed justice and fostered reconciliation. Across ten years, these courts tried some 1.2 million cases.
It must be stressed, however, that the gacaca experiment left behind a mixed legacy. Two prominent criticisms hold that the courts became politicised over time, while high social tensions remained. These challenges, compounded by a thin judicial system, speak to constraints in the Philippines which would make a gacaca model enormously challenging. It is all the more difficult to prosecute drug-related violence when it persists to this day, despite President Marcos’ pledges.
So even if Duterte spends his final years at The Hague, full justice for drug war victims falls to the mercy of domestic politics. And in light of dimmer and dimmer survey returns for the anti-Duterte Philippine opposition, there is little interest in reforming justice processes.
For victims’ families, their relief from Duterte’s arrest already seems dashed by such odds.
