NEARLY one month after former president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested at the Manila airport and flown to The Hague to face a charge of crimes against humanity, we have seen how emotions have been raised from both sides of the fence.
The 80-year-old Duterte, indicted following complaints largely on his bloody war on drugs when he was mayor of his hometown Davao and later as president of the country, will have his day in court, in what is seen as a dragged out trial which will begin in September.
Prosecutors and his defense team, with their arguments submitted before the three-member International Criminal Court, will definitely enrich jurisprudence for authority and reference by lawyers and law students of international law.
Whether he was kidnapped, abducted, taken against his will by force and cunning will be settled by the court as the trial gears up.
In the meanwhile, we have seen partisans using social media platforms, the frequency of which is astounding, with followers sharing what is forwarded in social media, high in the hope that the more shares a forwarded video – and very often these are fake – would make the better it would gain followers who no longer fact check what they receive.
As keen observers of what happened before and four days to the Ides of March, the enforcement of the responsibility of the State to uphold due process and the rule of law in this country was maintained.
The ICC issued a warrant for Duterte’s arrest on March 7 and the Philippine National Police implemented the Red Notice of the International Criminal Police Organization upon Duterte’s arrival from Hong Kong. The Philippines has long been a member of the Interpol along with more than 190 countries.
Duterte was read his Miranda Rights by Police Major General Nicolas Torre at the Villamor Air Base. Duterte supporters complained that this was highly irregular since the police officer only used his cellphone in doing so, instead of reading from a hard copy. But this is neither here nor there.
What is clear is that even before Duterte began his term as president in the second half of 2016, the police had already started the killing spree that targeted mainly small-time drug dealers and users, driven by his order to end the drug menace in the country between three to six months.
The Philippine National Police acknowledged an official death toll of around 6,400 in the bloody war on drugs but human rights groups here and abroad believe that from 20,000 to 30,000 actually died between 2026 and mid-2022 when Duterte stepped down from office
Rodrigo Duterte has all the right to answer the charges against him, and enjoys the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.