Manila (AFP) – Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested Tuesday in Manila by police acting on an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant tied to his deadly war on drugs.
The 79-year-old faces a charge of “the crime against humanity of murder”, according to the ICC, for a crackdown that rights groups estimate killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
“Early in the morning, Interpol Manila received the official copy of the warrant of the arrest from the ICC,” the presidential palace said in a statement.
“As of now, he is under the custody of authorities.”
The statement added that “the former president and his group are in good health and are being checked by government doctors”.
Duterte’s former chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, called the arrest “unlawful”.
“The (Philippine National Police) didn’t allow one of his lawyers to meet him at the airport and to question the legal basis for PRRD’s arrest,” he said, adding a hard copy of the ICC warrant had not been provided.
But a group that worked to support mothers of those killed in Duterte’s drugs crackdown called the arrest a “very welcome development”.
“The mothers whose husbands and children were killed because of the drug war are very happy because they have been waiting for this for a very long time,” Rubilyn Litao, coordinator for Rise Up for Life and for Rights, told AFP.
Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, called on the government of President Ferdinand Marcos to “swiftly surrender (Duterte) to the ICC”, saying the arrest was a “critical step for accountability in the Philippines”.
And they all just watched him being taken away. No war, no military response. Please, politics is politics regardless of the region in the world.
So you’re also not aware that it was the PNP that arrested him? The government was notified of the warrant and simply complied. The current administration is split between two families of dictators (Marcos and Duterte) in case you didn’t know.
It’s only been hours since Duterte was arrested. Who knows what’s going to happen?
I’m unaware of anything in this case other than it’s ugly in every way.
Dude is awful, but why’d the ICC wait this long? Oh, you say he was given away on a silver platter!? Seems ICC didn’t even do anything but receive him into custody…
Is my starting comment wrong? Guess it doesn’t even matter at this point. The less people have of something, the more they’re desperate to defend it. And justice is just too sparse these days…
Anyway, he deserves it. But I don’t like how it’s getting done. Personal preference probably…
Who knows? Investigation only started toward the end of his term. Duterte was in position until 2022 and even made the Philippines withdraw from the ICC sometime during his term. Since you don’t know, his family has strained relationships lately with the Marcos family (another influential family that committed human rights abuses in the 1970s-80s). The current president happens to be Bongbong Marcos. The way some people see it, it looked like a golden opportunity for Marcos
I’m not here to praise the ICC – they’re very slow and I’m aware of their biases. Nor am I here to praise Marcos for cooperating with them so he can destabilize his political opponent. There’s a lot of gray areas and it’s really complex. The issue is very fresh. Nobody knows what’s going to happen next. We can only speculate. It’s a developing issue.
Anyway, please trust me when I say that Philippine politics is very complicated and messy. I believe it’s true for many countries but as someone who was born in the Philippines as a Filipino and witnessed the Duterte term, I can say that I know my country more than anyone here on Lemmy. Saying things like he’s “little people” and “weak” or “powerless” is completely wrong and offensive to those who suffered. Even while he’s arrested, the Duterte family is still very powerful.
Honestly, if you had worded your first comment as a critique against the ICC for not doing enough and left out downplaying the crimes of Duterte, you wouldn’t have offended so many people. I understand your frustration now, but I hope you understand mine too.
Perhaps I could’ve worded it better. It’s not about Duterte in particular, but more about attacking only when those cannot defend themselves. The very action of bullying the weak and fearing the strong.
It’s about us humans as a civilization adopting and accepting that only by trampling others when they’re down can we espouse a higher morality.
We shy away from direct confrontation and we shy away from stopping it when it’s happening. Even the so-called prevention is focused on demeaning and controlling the nameless, hapless citizen.
Duterte, Putin, Netanyahu and all the others could have been stopped and should have been stopped earlier. Yet they weren’t and most still aren’t.
And we call all of this as justice. It’s embarrassing.