Anthony Ross Bagamasbad
The Arrest
On Tuesday morning, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested upon his arrival in Manila from Hong Kong. This arrest was made on account of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with accusations of crimes against humanity over his anti-drug campaign throughout his tenure. At the time of writing, Duterte is at the Hague pending trial.
“The Drug War”
3,906 suspected drug users and dealers were killed during police operations,
Duterte made it his sworn mission in 2016, upon his initiation as president, to put a stop to the drug crisis that pervaded the country. He was stern, claiming that bodies will be dumped in Manila Bay and urged the public to kill drug addicts. 1 year later, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) released data revealing that 3,906 suspected drug users and dealers were killed during police operations, with operations handled by unidentified gunmen increasing the death toll to more than 12,000. Duterte’s mission, to his rendering, had been successful.
The deaths of 56 children who were in the company of the intended targets, to which Duterte dismissed their deaths as “collateral damage”.
These official numbers do not tell the whole story, however, as a Human Rights Watch Investigation found that the Philippine National Police had repeatedly manipulated crime scenes by planting guns, forged accounts of spent ammunition and placed drug packets on victims’ bodies to frame them as complicit in drug activities. In July 2017, the Philippine children’s rights group published data highlighting the deaths of 56 children who were in the company of the intended targets, to which Duterte dismissed their deaths as “collateral damage”.
Kian Lloyd Delos Santos, a 17-year-old from Caloocan City, was shot and killed near his house on August 16, 2017. Initial police reports claimed self-defence, alleging that Santos had fired shots first. These reports contradicted eye-witness accounts and CCTV footage that showed non-uniformed police officers dragging away the teenager into a dark alley and shooting him at point-blank range. Kian Lloyd Delos Santos’ death, among many similar cases, serves as a reminder of Duterte’s borderline fanatical approach in tackling the drug problem, even if the cost included innocent lives; a cost that to many, was too high a price to pay. Duterte had created an environment in which both the police and the general population ‘believe[d] they have a free rein to kill with impunity.’ The fine line between freedom and anarchy was one that Duterte seemed willing to cross, leaving behind him the blood of countless innocent lives.
The Political Chess Match
“You will just have to kill me. I won’t allow you to take the side of the white foreigners.”
As a natural consequence of Duterte’s ruthless approach, his anti-drug campaign became nested within a wider legal dispute with the ICC, to which Duterte played his foreign policy cards wisely. The ICC already had Duterte on their radar, launching an investigation into him during his tenure as mayor of Davao in 2011. Aware of a potential target on his back, Duterte had made it his implicit mission to avoid ICC oversight over his anti-drug campaign during his presidency.
In 2017, pro-Duterte lawmakers sought to eliminate budgetary funding for the Commission on Human Rights. In August of the same year, Duterte instructed police that should human rights groups and advocates interfere in their operations, “if they are obstructing justice, you shoot them.” Duterte’s aggressive rhetoric, coupled with the alleged extrajudicial killings during the anti-drug campaign, led to the ICC’s preliminary investigation in 2018. Sensing the ICC’s ever-increasing influence, Duterte withdrew from the Rome Statute, the establishment of the ICC, on 16 March 2019.
This was a logical move intended to evade responsibility for his actions. Without the extended influence of the ICC, Duterte’s administration attempted to stop the ICC investigation in 2021, but the ICC rejected this attempt and continued its investigations.
Upon his arrest, Duterte remarked “You will just have to kill me. I won’t allow you to take the side of the white foreigners.” His words reflect a key denominator during his tenure as president – his unwillingness to comply with foreign legal bodies.
Checkmate
The arrest only proved to expose the ICC’s “politicisation” and “double standards.
Duterte’s foreign policies were strategic, intended to safeguard his actions from any sense of accountability on the global stage. The deaths of innocents were made to be hidden underneath shady police records, orchestrated reports, and the guise of “collateral damage”. Yet perhaps this “collateral damage” was also self-inflicted, for Duterte’s prolonged attempt of evading the ICC’s influence proved only to lead to his eventual arrest.
To the families of victims, justice is served. To others, such as China’s foreign ministry, the arrest only proved to expose the ICC’s “politicisation” and “double standards.” From whatever lens we may look through, Duterte’s arrest is the outcome of a long-standing chess game with the ICC, the result of which as it stands, seems to be a checkmate for the latter.
Anthony Ross Bagamasbad
Featured image courtesy of Tingey Law Firm via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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