So former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested today on the back of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The arrest was effected at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport as Duterte returned from a trip to Hong Kong. This follows widespread speculation propagated by detractors — mostly members of the Yellowtard-Communist Axis — that Duterte was there to evade this arrest.
So what happens now? It seems that very little is within the control of Filipinos or their government from hereon. An Inquirer report points out that the ICC “has jurisdiction over individuals who bear criminal responsibility for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.”
Once an order for surrender is issued, the person is delivered to the Court, and held at the Detention Centre in The Hague. The ICC Detention Centre operates in conformity with the highest international human rights standards for the treatment of detainees.
What do Duterte’s supporters plan to do? That remains uncertain too. It is likely that the usual indignation activities, various forms of protest rallies, social media storms, and other similar initiatives are the only options left for them. For his part, current President Bongbong Marcos whose father was given a hero’s burial under Duterte’s administration is doing a Pontius Pilate.
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As predicted, the Philippines has once again assumed the all-too-familiar position as welcome mat to Western foreign powers’ preferred world order and the agents of institutions they lend legitimacy to.
As I wrote sometime back…
The fact is, the Philippines risks huge loss of reputation if it subjects itself to an ICC “investigation”. In southeast Asia it is only the Philippines and East Timor that had, at one time or another, been parties to the Rome Statute. Not that there’s anything wrong with being an African country but being the first Southeast Asian nation to succumb to the “authority” of the ICC will make Philippines come across like one of those dysfunctional states in that continent. It seems, members of the Yellowtard-Communist Axis are willing to burn an entire house down just to kill a couple of rats. And then there is the issue of convincing an electorate that said rats actually are rats.
Perhaps Duterte did commit all those crimes he is accused of and, now, in the custody of a foreign “court” for. But, see, that is something that should have been left to Filipinos to investigate and account for within their own country’s legal frame and criminal justice processes. Sadly that opportunity for the Filipino people to demonstrate a sovereign capacity to sort themselves out under their own terms has eluded them again and laid bare their continued beholdenness to all things colonial.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.