President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and US President Donald Trump discuss matters during a bilateral meeting at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay City on November 13, 2017. | Photo Karl Norman Alonzo/PCO via Wikimedia Commons
A Special Report — Part II on “Crimes Against Humanity”
Will a President of the United States (POTUS) follow in the footsteps of former Filipino Presidents Rodrigo Duterte or Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr.? Or both?
Part I, which was published last Wednesday, mentioned the more than 30,000 victims who were extra-judicially killed (EJK) by rogue police or military personnel at the order of former President Duterte during his war against drug addicts, pushers, distributors, and manufacturers of banned addictive drugs. The victims were simply killed, even on suspicion of being drug users or peddlers. Perhaps then President Duterte found it cheaper to eliminate violent drug addicts, et al., than to set up drug-treatment and rehabilitation facilities. The former Philippine president is now in the custody of the International Criminal Court while his trial proceeds. The ICC denied his petition for temporary release, even if he or his family posts a bond.
Media reports say that the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) has been joined by more than 60 organizations that collectively expressed alarm at the repeated EJKs of unidentified civilians in the Caribbean through U.S. strikes. It also calls on Congress to block such military action in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean areas of South America.
“The United States government has now summarily executed (as of October 8, 2025) over 20 civilians in the Caribbean with no accountability or end in sight,” said Annie Shiel, CIVIC’s U.S. Director. “These unauthorized strikes violate fundamental principles of human rights and U.S. law and risk escalation toward a conflict that would devastate communities across the region. Congress must act now or risk setting the dangerous precedent that the president can execute anyone he accuses of a crime without due process. We urge lawmakers to support War Powers Resolutions to put an end to these illegal killings.”
Mainstream media have not confirmed if the CIVIC and its groups of human-rights advocates and allies will collectively elevate the alleged violations of the Trump Administration to the ICC. Nor has it been learned whether Trump Administration officials will be made co-defendants or accessories of the Israeli prime minister and his generals that have been accused of ‘Crimes Against Humanity” in the Gaza Strip of Palestine. The ICC has already issued warrants of arrest for the prime minister and military leaders of Israel.
“The United States government has now summarily executed (as of October 8, 2025) over 20 civilians in the Caribbean with no accountability or end in sight,”
–Annie shiel, civic u.s. director
President Trump visited the Philippines to meet with Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte on November 12–14, 2017. U.S. intelligence officers assigned to the American Embassy in the City of Manila should have briefed the White House delegation about President Duterte’s war on drug addicts, pushers, and suppliers, which were all against international law. It is believed that President Trump did not warn Mr. Duterte that drug addiction is only considered a disease in the United States, Europe, and other developed countries. Mr. Duterte’s war against addicted people and the drug suppliers continued until the last day of his office as the Philippine president on June 30, 2022.
No POTUS can emulate then President Marcos, Sr. Why? Because Mr. Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, and easily at that, because two of the top generals were his cousins. Then, he replaced the United States-inspired 1935 Philippine Commonwealth Constitution with his own “Marcos Constitution”, as enacted by his rubber-stamp constitutional convention in 1973. It allowed him to seek a third term and even run for reelection again and again for life.
It also abolished the Philippine Congress and replaced it with a parliament that Strongman Marcos packed with his supporters, aside from he himself naming its prime minister. He jailed his political rivals and sent his number-one critic, Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr., to the United States, supposedly for medical treatment. Then had him assassinated when he returned to the Philippines on August 21, 1983.
Then the Marcos government launched wars against domestic opponents, especially college students, many of whom were forced to join the New People’s Army, a communist organization, to survive extra-judicial killings (EJK). And unleashed EJK sprees against the Moro Liberation Army in the Muslim areas of Mindanao Island. Then his military-and-police henchmen pushed the EJK incidents to new extreme levels and silenced forever many of his critics.
A civilian revolt in February 1986 deposed the Marcos government. The People’s Revolution was backed up by the majority of the Philippine military, which abandoned President Marcos. In reality, many pundits believed that the Reagan Administration orchestrated everything. In turn, President Reagan offered Hawaii as a place of exile for the deposed Philippine president, his family, military and business cronies, and other close relatives.
Quo vadis, United States of America?
