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Human Rights and Global Wrongs
Activists within the Philippines say the beautiful arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte on a warrant issued by the Worldwide Felony Court docket (ICC) for a criminal offense in opposition to humanity marks a serious step towards accountability for the hundreds of Filipinos focused and killed underneath the pretext of his notorious “struggle on medication.”
“The arrest of Duterte is very vital for the reason for worldwide justice as a result of it sends a transparent sign that tyrants who openly trample on primary human rights can ultimately be held to account by different worldwide accountability mechanisms,” Edre U. Olalia, chairperson of the Nationwide Union of Folks’s Attorneys (NUPL) within the Philippines and co-president of the Worldwide Affiliation of Democratic Attorneys, informed Truthout.
In a press release, the Worldwide Coalition for Human Rights within the Philippines acknowledged that Duterte’s arrest “marks an unprecedented step in the direction of justice for the hundreds of victims of his bloody struggle on the poor and struggle on dissent.”
On March 7, 2025, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber I issued an arrest warrant for Duterte for a criminal offense in opposition to humanity allegedly dedicated between November 1, 2011, and March 16, 2019, within the context of what he known as his “struggle on medication.” Whereas Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC’s Rome Statute on March 17, 2019, the chamber restricted its findings to the interval throughout which the Philippines was a celebration to the treaty.
Filipino authorities arrested Duterte within the Manila airport pursuant to Interpol and despatched him to The Hague to face the costs on the ICC.
Duterte’s Crime Towards Humanity
In issuing the arrest warrant, the chamber discovered cheap grounds to consider that Duterte dedicated the crime in opposition to humanity of homicide. The Rome Statute requires that the homicide be perpetrated “as a part of a widespread or systematic assault directed in opposition to any civilian inhabitants, with data of the assault.”
The chamber decided that an assault occurred pursuant to an organizational coverage whereas Duterte was head of the Davao Dying Squad (which he based), and a state coverage whereas he was president of the Philippines. The chamber additionally concluded that the assault was widespread and systematic, it befell over a number of years, and hundreds of individuals had been killed.
Duterte turned mayor of Davao Metropolis in 1998 and president of the Philippines in 2016. When he assumed the place of mayor, Duterte established a “loss of life squad” whose mission was to kill criminals. In each of his capacities, Duterte and his co-perpetrators agreed to “neutralise” alleged criminals or these with prison propensities, together with however not restricted to drug offenders. “Neutralise,” the chamber wrote, meant “kill,” usually in a “very covert and secret method,” with out primary regulation enforcement or investigation.
The chamber discovered cheap grounds to consider that Duterte was individually liable for the crime in opposition to humanity of homicide as an oblique co-perpetrator. He designed and oversaw the venture; supplied it with firearms, ammunition, safehouses, automobiles and communications tools to hold out the killings; instructed and licensed violent acts in opposition to suspected criminals; appointed personnel to execute the crimes; supplied monetary incentives and promotions to law enforcement officials and “hit males” to kill the suspects; promised immunity; and shielded the perpetrators from investigation and prosecution.
“The arrest of Duterte sends a transparent sign that tyrants who openly trample on primary human rights can ultimately be held to account by different worldwide accountability mechanisms.”
Though he’s now not president of the Philippines, Duterte “seems to proceed to wield appreciable energy,” based on the chamber.
Duterte’s Conflict on Medicine Was a Pretext to Kill Political Opponents
Throughout his 2016 presidential marketing campaign, Duterte promised a crackdown on narcotics, warning that “drug pushers, holdup males and do-nothings” ought to depart or he would “kill” them. Police information point out that greater than 7,000 folks had been killed in official anti-narcotics operations. However human rights defenders say the loss of life toll exceeded 30,000.
Catholic leaders known as this system a “reign of terror.” Duterte normalized the killings by labeling them a part of the struggle on medication, said Carlos Conde, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, masking the Philippines.
“The bogus ‘struggle on medication’ was additionally used as a pretext to go after members of the opposition as exemplified by the submitting of trumped-up costs and persecution of critics,” Olalia stated. NUPL represents and assists a few of the victims of Duterte’s bloody drug struggle.
Rights teams stated Duterte used his so-called struggle as an excuse to kill his political opponents, although specialists stated the Philippines did not have an oversized drug problem.
After his 2016 election as president, Duterte listed 158 public officers he accused of involvement within the narcotics commerce. In 2018, he issued another list with the names of 600 folks whom he claimed had been “communist terrorists.” That checklist included then-UN Particular Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, who believed she was targeted due to her opposition to the assaults and killings of Indigenous folks in Mindanao.
On September 27, 2018, Duterte publicly admitted, “My solely sin is the extrajudicial killings.”
Trump Praises Duterte
In September 2018, I testified as an knowledgeable earlier than the International Peoples’ Tribunal on the Philippines in Brussels, Belgium. The tribunal discovered Duterte responsible of struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity, aided and abetted by President Donald Trump throughout his first administration. In 2017, Trump praised Duterte, telling him in a phone name that he was doing “an unbelievable job on the drug drawback.”
Throughout the phrases of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump, the U.S. supplied help to the Philippine authorities which enabled it to commit struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity, the tribunal concluded: “US presence and the everlasting and expanded basing of US troops are additional emboldening the Defendant Duterte authorities in implementing the counterinsurgency program Oplan Kapayapaan patterned after the 2009 US Counterinsurgency Information and financed by Defendant US authorities.” U.S. authorities help to the Duterte authorities, the tribunal wrote, included the supply of “intelligence, funding, orientation, coaching and arms to advertise and pursue its financial and geopolitical pursuits within the area.”
In its written choice, the tribunal adopted my testimony: “U.S. army assist to the Philippine authorities facilitates its fee of struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity in opposition to its personal folks. Like Philippine leaders, U.S. political and army leaders may very well be liable within the Worldwide Felony Court docket as aiders and abettors of struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity.”
Two months after these tribunal proceedings, Benjamin Ramos, a human rights lawyer and co-founder (with Olalia) of NUPL, was assassinated. Ramos had defended the rights of farmers within the Philippine island of Negros for greater than 30 years.
In Could 2024, I testified as soon as once more as an knowledgeable on the International People’s Tribunal on War Crimes in the Philippines in Brussels. The tribunal discovered Duterte and Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. responsible of struggle crimes and violations of worldwide humanitarian regulation in opposition to the Filipino folks. Then U.S. President Joe Biden was discovered responsible of aiding and abetting these crimes.
Most of the 15 witnesses — each in particular person and by video deposition — delivered firsthand accounts of extrajudicial killings, torture, compelled disappearances and assaults on Indigenous communities defending their ancestral lands from plunder by mining and different firms. The regime engaged in “red-tagging,” wherein focused people had been “tagged” as terrorists or communists or each, no matter their precise political views or affiliations.
The U.S. supplied help to the Philippine authorities which enabled it to commit struggle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity, the tribunal concluded.
The Philippine authorities’s counterinsurgency program drew no distinction between civilians and combatants, the tribunal discovered, in violation of worldwide humanitarian regulation.
What Occurs Subsequent
Duterte made a video look earlier than the ICC judges at present the place he was knowledgeable of the costs in opposition to him and browse his rights. The decide set a affirmation of costs (indictment) listening to for September 21, the place the costs in opposition to him shall be confirmed, the prosecutors will describe the proof in opposition to him, and his protection attorneys can reply and problem the courtroom’s jurisdiction. The decide additionally ordered the prosecution, inside seven days from at present, to offer materials to help the idea of the arrest warrant. His trial may happen inside two years, the place his attorneys reportedly plan to argue “self-defense.” In the meantime, Duterte shall be held in a custodial detention facility close to The Hague. If convicted, he may face a most sentence of life in jail.
“The sturdy collective pushback has demonstrated that he’s not invincible as he thinks and acts to be,” stated NUPL’s Olalia.
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