Daven Tamayo

The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee secretary administers the oath of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte Monday, October 28, 2024 before he begins his testimony before the subcommittee investigating motu proprio the alleged extra-judicial killings during his administration. In his opening statement, Duterte defended his war against illegal drugs, which he said was not about killing people but about protecting the innocent. “My mandate as President of the Republic was to protect the country and the Filipino people. Do not question my policies because I offer no apologies nor excuses. I did what I had to do,” the former chief executive said. “My job as President was never easy... I have tried to do the best I can to address the problem of illegal drugs firmly and without compromises. For all of its successes and shortcomings, I, and I alone take full legal responsibility,” he added. Senate Public Relations and Information Bureau

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SENATE PROBE- EJK

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Hours before he boarded the plane bound for the Hague, Rodrigo Duterte complained about illegal detention and the absence of due process. A troubled Imee Marcos soon followed on the news saying she was re-living the harrowing cruelty experienced by some previous unnamed former Philippine president who out of nowhere was whisked off to Hawaii for some mysterious undisclosed reason.Thoughts and prayers.Given the absence of charge sheets and arrest warrants presented to the media, maybe Duterte has a point. It’s certainly a view Duterte shares with several thousand ghosts of Filipinos summarily slaughtered during his reign of blood lust.  To be fair to Digong, “infringement of Philippine sovereignty&quot; is a valid concern. His arrest is, after all, a declaration that asserts the country’s judicial system is incapable of competently carrying out justice for the slaughtered, without regard for the status and wealth of accusers and the accused.Undoubtedly, the situation is complex. But it is also not so complicated.The ICC tries individuals charged with the gravest of crimes: There is genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression. It also means Filipino politicians involved in garden variety looting of the country’s coffers have little reason to worry.It’s not that the masses keep re-electing thieves. It’s that no one ever seems to be held accountable for ransacking the nation’s treasury, which is interpreted, correctly, as naked encouragement for thieves to continue running for public office. Otherwise, as they always say, someone else will milk the teats. So why not them? Again. And why discriminate against new pilferers when top tax evaders are rewarded with the top posts of the country?But stealing public money is not in the ICC’s menu of ghastly misconduct. Certainly, it is deadly to the child without food or healthcare, but to a people willing to tolerate the offense, the punishment for enabling avarice might be more severe than death by musketry: Elections that serve as public wedding vows to the rapacious. Till death do us part, and yikes, the marriage seems to hold even after the robbers croak. It’s batshit, for sure, but not a crime against humanity.But mass murder? Organized, monetized, open slaughter? In a national setting where decades of deadly elite debauchery, especially after the fall of Marcos, has become the norm?  Ah. Well.A state of impunity does not materialize suddenly out of thin air.You might sweep the floor, brush the carpet, and dust the shelves; you might polish glass and silverware till they gleam. But the damp is patient, and it’s never your fault; it’s always someone else’s problem.Primitivo and Boyet Mijares, father and son claimed by the Marcos dictatorship? Rabblerousers.Teresita Llorente? Troublemaker.Maria Luz Mondejar? Disorderly. Evelio Javier? Unruly.Shortly after the tyrant fled, was it Rolando Olalia and Lean Alejandro’s turn? Communists.Gerry Ortega during Noynoy Aquino’s time? Agitator.All the Filipino journalists murdered post-Marcos? Charlatans.Is it so surprising perpetrators of heinous acts roam freely with little concern for their wellbeing? Less than a decade ago, leaders of the Philippine National Police—the very institution that delivered Duterte to an aircraft headed to the Hague—were furious at Human Rights Watch for saying in a span of three years government had killed over 20,000 suspected drug users and pushers. Liars, screamed the PNP, whose officials insisted they only executed 5,000 in Duterte’s so-called drug war. An uncle of 17-year-old student Kian de los Santos, who had begged his captors to spare his life because he needed to study for exams the next day, said at least Duterte will have his day in court unlike his nephew who was shot in cold blood. Kian was only a suspect, or mistaken for another suspect. Like young Carl Arnaiz, the math whiz from a public high school. Justifications for killing get in the way of efficiency. They had to die. Have pity on wretched policemen; they’d be denied the Duterte government’s cash incentives if they did not turn in their weekly quota of cadavers. So, yes. It is the ICC that now provides a sense of accountability in a country where the wheels of justice, if they are moving at all, continue to grind so slowly surviving victims and their families expect to die ahead of any resolution in the country’s judicial courts. Some have described the ICC as a tool of the West, that it acts only on leaders of countries that have run afoul of Western powers. There’s some truth to this. In the past some called it “victor’s justice.” After ensuring only Nazis and Japanese fascists would be tried for war crimes committed in World War II, the United States recruited war criminals like the Nazi aerospace engineer Wernher Von Braun and the leader of Japan’s Unit 731, Shiro Ishii, Class A innovator of vivisection and other methods of human experimentation. All for a good cause, of course. Having defeated the Axis powers, the West had trained its eyes on the Soviet Union. In 2023, ICC judges issued an arrest warrant for the war criminal, Vladimir Putin, a move robustly welcomed by the U.S. government. Yet the following year, when judges of the ICC ordered the arrest of Yahya Sinwar and Benjamin Netanyahu, the same U.S. government was outraged at the Israeli war criminal’s inclusion in the ICC charge sheet. How dare the ICC. Thankfully, the ICC dared. Small steps are being taken. Thank goodness. But there’s still a long way to go. As for accountability and crimes against humanity, don’t ever mention them with the words “climate” and “crisis.”The damp is patient. It’s someone else’s problem.

Hours before he boarded the plane bound for the Hague, Rodrigo Duterte complained about illegal detention and the absence of due process.

Hours before he boarded the plane bound for the Hague, Rodrigo Duterte complained about illegal detention and the absence of due process.

OPINION: Whose tribulation?

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OPINION: Whose tribulation?

ABS-CBN News,

Renato Redentor Constantino

Published Mar 12, 2025 07:52 PM PHT

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ICC

International Criminal Court

Rodrigo Duterte

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