Duterte rose to popularity with his dramatic and violent pledges to stamp out drug use and crime. During a campaign speech in 2016, he told a crowd: “All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you … I have no patience, I have no middle ground.”
The ICC estimates that tens of thousands of people were killed in connection with Duterte’s anti-drugs campaign. The primary victims of his violent policy were poor men living in urban areas, while innocent bystanders were dismissed as “collateral damage”. There was no mistaking his goals and the means through which he was willing to get there. A few months after taking office in 2016, Duterte likened himself to Hitler, using the Holocaust as an analogy for his crackdown, declaring that he would be happy to slaughter millions of drug addicts.
Despite the numerous allegations against him, the ICC’s case remains relatively narrow. It holds Duterte criminally responsible for the murders of at least 43 people between 2011 and 2019 linked to his war on drugs.
Duterte’s legacy
Before becoming president, Duterte served as deputy mayor and then mayor of Davao, a city island, across about 20 years. As Kate Lamb highlights in her comprehensive profile of the former president, it was in Davao during the 1980s that the earliest version of Duterte’s war on drugs took shape: “Dead bodies regularly turned up on the streets.” Last year, Duterte admitted that he had a “death squad” to crack down on crime during his time as mayor.
His promise to replicate Davao’s brutal anti-drug crackdown on a national scale propelled him to the presidency in 2016. Yet, despite his bold claims, at the time of his election Davao still had the highest murder rate in the country and the second-highest number of rapes, according to national police data.
Over the six years after his election, up to 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed, including innocent bystanders, in what Human Rights Watch described as a “campaign of extrajudicial execution in impoverished areas of Manila and other urban centres”. Officers were granted immunity from prosecution for deaths occurring in their custody, and victims’ bodies were often discarded in rivers, grasslands, and rubbish dumps.
Why now?
Despite widespread condemnation of Duterte’s violent authoritarian crackdowns, his arrest was triggered by internal political squabbles. The former president had expected protection from his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who initially pledged to shield him from international scrutiny. Marcos, the son of former dictator Ferdinand E Marcos, won the presidency in a landslide with Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte, as his vice-president.
Their fragile alliance, widely seen as a marriage of convenience, collapsed in spectacular fashion. Sara Duterte declared she wanted to “cut off his head” last year and even threatened to exhume his father’s body and throw it into the ocean. In February, allies of Marcos impeached her. The two political dynasties have since been at war in the lead-up to the country’s midterm elections. As their feud escalated, Marcos’s once defiant stance on the ICC – insisting it had no jurisdiction – began to shift. Eventually, he stated that the Philippines would cooperate with any arrest warrant issued through Interpol.
Pressures facing the ICC
While the recent developments may appear swift, the case against Duterte has been meticulously constructed over seven years. In 2018, the ICC initiated a preliminary inquiry into allegations of crimes against humanity committed by Duterte. This escalated to a full criminal investigation in 2021. In response, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC.
His arrest holds symbolic significance for the embattled court because it “has been able to demonstrate that it can continue its work and fulfil its mandate while it is under significant pressure from various directions”, Harry says. Donald Trump has imposed aggressive economic sanctions on the ICC and travel bans on its staff and the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, is facing an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, which he denies.
Khan, despite issuing high-profile arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, and the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has so far struggled to secure their arrests. There is pressure on Khan to deliver – and the Duterte case may help. However, Harry adds that it is important to remember “this process began under his predecessor and there is a team of people who’ve been working on this for years, so this is not a case of a singular victory for him – it’s not as straightforward or simple as that”.
The significance of Duterte’s arrest
For the victims of Duterte’s actions, this is a significant moment. The former president’s brazen admissions of various crimes fostered the impression that he was untouchable – but now, he sits in The Hague, awaiting trial.
“This also helps make the court and its mission feel less theoretical,” Harry adds. “Within days of securing the arrest warrant it acted effectively and quickly in a situation where there are a great many alleged victims, where the atrocity crimes are apparent, and I think that certainly has some symbolic value in this present moment.”
Duterte’s arrest serves as a warning to other leaders: their fortunes can change and they too could find themselves on a plane to The Hague. But this is a double-edged sword, as it also underscores the ICC’s weaknesses – justice in this case hinged on the political will of an opposition leader seizing an opportunity to take down a rival.
This reflects a broader issue for the ICC. Arrest warrants for figures like Putin or Netanyahu may signal the court’s resolve, but they also highlight its limitations and impotence – there is no chance of either leader being detained in the near future. Still, Duterte’s arrest is a rare moment of respite for the court during an “acute and awkward moment”, Harry says. “It’s a much-needed win for the court at the moment, but this arrest is only the first step in securing a conviction, so this is more of a provisional victory. Cases can and have fallen apart before they get to a full trial.”
