Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and former Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea were on board the jet to The Hague on March 11, 2025, for Duterte’s trial at the International Criminal Court. | Photo by Sen. Bong Go via Wikimedia Commons
On March 11, the unbelievable happened: the once greatly feared former president Rodrigo Duterte, allegedly the mastermind of the Davao Death Squad and the brutal war on illegal drugs, stepped off a plane at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and, to his shock, was promptly arrested.
There is one man who can make accused perpetrators of crimes against humanity, mass murder, and genocide shiver with fear, and that is Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, KC, the powerful and determined prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). He was the one who requested the warrant of arrest for Duterte, which was issued by the ICC and served by the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol, and the Philippine National Police.
After his arrest, Duterte was taken to nearby Villamor Air Base, where this formerly powerful and feared man — accused of mass murder and crimes against humanity — was held in custody for the first time in his life. “What is my sin?” he asked. To get his answer, he was flown to The Hague in the Netherlands, where the ICC is headquartered, several hours later. A pre-trial chamber hearing was already held.
Khan, who specializes in international criminal law, said the atrocities Duterte was said to have committed involved “the crime against humanity of murder (Article 7(1)(a) of the Rome Statute) committed in the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019.”
“Mr. Duterte is alleged to have committed these crimes as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against the civilian population,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
The unexpected arrest of Duterte has indeed brought relief and some small comfort and hope that justice might yet be delivered to the thousands of families of the thousands of people summarily executed on his orders, first when he was mayor of Davao City and later as president. Human rights advocates and researchers allege that as many as 30,000 persons in all were murdered by police, assassins, and bounty hunters — all well-paid with government funds for killing small-time suspects for peddling drugs in Duterte’s drug war. The illegal drug barons and traffickers were untouched.
Duterte’s case is already in the pre-trial phase. The prosecutor must show that it has sufficient evidence to commit the case to trial. At this stage, the judges must decide whether to confirm, decline, or review the charges the Office of the Prosecutor presented against the defendant. If the judges confirm the charges, the case goes to trial. The court notice said that once at trial, the prosecutor will be the first to present his case and bear the burden of proof that the accused is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The presentation of evidence will then begin.
The case investigation formally began when lawyer Jude Sabio filed a formal complaint to the ICC, alleging that the “terrifying, gruesome, and disastrous” drug war caused the deaths of more than 7,000 people. He said that Duterte, for over 30 years, had committed “repeatedly, unchangingly and continuously” mass murder that began in 1988, when Duterte became mayor of Davao City, and continued when he became president. Among the several testimonies he submitted was that of Duterte’s confessed hitman, Edgar Matobato, who was granted immunity and protection in a foreign country in return.
” I told them I would not pay bail but would fight for justice for the street kids from jail. The mayor sent a letter to the judge while we were waiting, saying he was withdrawing his complaint.”
Beside Matobato, there is Arturo Lascanas, a former police officer who admitted that he may have killed as many as 200 people, allegedly on Duterte’s orders. In an interview with the United Kingdom’s Observer newspaper, he said: “Sometimes we kidnapped our subject and put the packing tape on their head until they suffocated, and then we would throw them in the street.” They and other witnesses will likely be called to testify during the court proceedings against Duterte.
Duterte could be convicted of murder with his own statements. He was quoted as saying in a television address: “In Davao, I used to do it personally (kill people). Just to show to the guys [police officers] that if I can do it, why can’t you.”
He also said: “[I’d] go around in Davao with a motorcycle … and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also. I was really looking for a confrontation so I could kill.”
Social workers from Tambayan, a children’s rights-focused nongovernmental organization in Davao City, requested this writer in 1999 to help expose the killing of street children by motorbike-riding hit squads. I began an international letter-writing campaign to then-Davao City mayor Benjamin de Guzman, who stood in for Duterte when he was elected to Congress. Hundreds of letters to the mayor poured in from around the world, protesting the killings. The mayor was angry at me and filed libel charges. I was subpoenaed to be arraigned.
About 50 street children with tin cans and plastic bugles met me at the airport. They made a noisy protective circle around me from a possible hitman and led me to a waiting jeepney. The case was called, but the mayor failed to show up in the courtroom filled with media members. I told them I would not pay bail but would fight for justice for the street kids from jail. The mayor sent a letter to the judge while we were waiting, saying he was withdrawing his complaint.
Years later, I received a mobile phone call in the presence of Francis Bermido Jr., president of the Preda Foundation, threatening that a hit squad from Davao would assassinate me. Later, they asked for money to call it off. We realized it was most likely a scam. They were taking advantage of the climate of fear during Duterte’s time. I paid nothing.
Now, Duterte will answer for the many assassinations he allegedly instigated and must answer for.
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This column was first published in The Sunday Times (www.manilatimes.net) on March 16, 2025. Print, digital, and online republication of this column without the author’s and The Manila Times’s written consent is strictly forbidden.
