by Daniel Long

 

You don’t play legal games with foreign kidnappers; you fight to rescue the elderly victim they’re holding hostage!

Yesterday, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court denied former President Rodrigo Duterte’s bid for interim release.

The judges — Erdenebalsuren Damdin and Gocha Lordkipanidze, with Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza presiding — said his detention must continue, rejecting defense arguments that his advanced age and declining health justified release.

Duterte had earlier waived his right to be personally present and allowed his lawyers to receive the ruling. The ruling was read in open court; the decision specifically cited the “possibility” that Duterte could abscond, intimidate witnesses, or otherwise obstruct justice if released because of “his extensive network of supporters,” political allies in the Senate, and the fact that he was given a mandate in this year’s midterm elections.

“We took into account the specific circumstances of Duterte, his position as the former President of the Philippines, and his recent re-election as mayor of Davao City,” Presiding Judge Carranza said.

The Duterte family released a statement thanking supporters and saying they accept the decision “with a peaceful heart” and that they will continue to engage with the former President’s defense team on the case and visit him at the detention cell.

Duterte’s defense lawyer, Atty. Nicholas Kauffman, said he will reapply for interim release pending a medical evaluation.

On the same day, the Philippine Supreme Court En Banc opened a major inquiry into the arrest and transfer of former President Rody Duterte to The Hague, directing all parties to submit complete documents within 30 days. They are examining whether Philippine officers had any lawful basis to arrest Duterte without a warrant issued by a Philippine judge.

The petitions were filed on behalf of the former president by his children Sebastian Duterte, Paolo Duterte, and Veronica Duterte, all questioning whether the Marcos government acted within the limits of Philippine law when authorities arrested the Duterte patriarch and turned him over to the International Criminal Court.

So here we are, eight months later, still suffering the indignity of having a Filipino citizen — the most popular and trusted President, and the Father of the Philippine Nation — who fought illegal drugs and kept our communities safe from crime — remaining, and most likely to perish, at the foreign hands of the European kangaroo court.

I find it incredibly insulting that the ICC would cite Duterte’s popular support from the Filipino people as a reason to deny him temporary liberty. The neocolonial message was loud and clear: Philippine democracy should be subject to European validation. On what basis did anybody think that a Global South Leader was ever going to be treated justly in a White Man’s Court?

Furthermore, Gocha Lordkipanidze, one of the Appellate Judges for yesterday’s decision rejecting PRRD’s interim release, was actually one of the two dissenting votes when the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber voted 3–2 to authorize a preliminary investigation into alleged crimes committed in the War on Drugs in September 2021, arguing that the court had already lost its residual jurisdiction over Manila more than two years after our withdrawal took effect. My apologies, but I really think of him as a two-faced weasel!

That is, until, in my view, when the chief executive (whom his sister publicly accused of being a drug addict earlier this month) is no longer in power, he and the other kidnappers will pay for their “group effort” of treason under our laws. I personally believe that there will be a day of reckoning for that cabal.

I will always support President Duterte’s War on Drugs because it kept our communities safe: it was safe to walk at night, even alone. It was a legitimate law enforcement operation and an undeniable success. During his time, 1.4 million Filipinos surrendered alive for rehabilitation, 60% of barangays were cleared of drugs, and crime was reduced by 74% nationwide.

In 2012, Manila was the crystal meth (shabu) capital of East Asia. By 2015, 88% of drugs confiscated by PDEA were shabu, and 92% of Metro Manila’s barangays were drug-affected. There were 3 million drug addicts, half of whom used shabu. Unlike other illegal drugs, shabu shrinks the brain and drives users to violent behavior: shootings, stabbings, and other heinous crimes. Almost no one can avoid relapse without rehabilitation. Our country would have been a narco-state if PRRD had not disrupted the status quo. Decades of omission in combating the drug scourge, to me, is the real crime against humanity.

The Old Man can only come home to Davao when he is rescued from the hands of the Dutch. In my view, that British-Israeli lawyer Kauffman is not going to save him. It is actually the ICC that is paying for his salary. Why else would he do such a terrible job as defense lawyer? The biased court favors the Prosecution, so naturally he wouldn’t bite the kangaroo hand that feeds him.

I apologize to his apologists, many of them diehard supporters of the former President, but I have zero faith in that man. It is the ICC that is shouldering all of the expenses of any possible defense counsel for PRRD. Even if you replace Kauffman with another lawyer, the difference would be marginal. Sad to say, but the entire European system is rigged against us law-abiding Filipino citizens. To me, we should never outsource the defense of one of our own to a foreigner.

To reiterate, you don’t play legal games with foreign kidnappers; you fight to rescue the elderly victim they’re holding hostage.

The motherhood statements from the Minority Bloc in the Senate are of no help either. We, the Filipino people, did not give them a wide electoral mandate in the midterms last May to simply participate in ribbon-cutting, cry on camera, and distribute relief goods. These are all well and good, but it is simply not enough and we deserve better. We’ve been crying and praying. They should be concerned with finding solutions.

And by solutions, I don’t mean knee-jerk, impractical, and performative nonsense like Mindanao secession. This is not to dismiss the legitimate concerns of our brothers and sisters in the South, but in the current political climate, it is totally unwise for public figures to call for that publicly. We already know that we are operating under a dispensation that openly defends “law-bending.” Let us not give them a reason to silence us in the name of punishing sedition because of our own imprudence.

In my view, there are two practical ways the former President can still come home.

First, simply wait for U.S. President Trump’s sanctions on the ICC (e.g., restrictions on travel, money transfers, asset freezes) to totally crush the day-to-day operations of the tribunal, rendering it inutile. The intention of the sanctions is to shield the actual war criminal and architect of the genocide in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it could have a secondary effect leading to the Old Man’s release. I’m less confident about this scenario because the top funders of the ICC are still the European Union, and they can possibly offset the damages inflicted by Trump’s sanctions.

Second, Duterte-bloc senators must author and sponsor a “Hague Invasion Act.” This is inspired by a 2002 U.S. law called the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which protects U.S. military personnel and other officials from ICC prosecution. The act authorizes the U.S. President to use all necessary means, “including military force,” to free any U.S. or allied citizen detained by the ICC. So, in theory, the U.S. can invade the Netherlands to release a detained U.S. or even allied citizen at The Hague.

It is obvious that the U.S. views us not as an ally but as a neocolony. Does anyone remember that humiliating visit of PBBM to the White House a few months ago? A 19% U.S. tariff on Philippine exports while we gave the Americans an open market and no reciprocal tariffs. Trump even subtly insulted the Palace occupant by calling him a “tough negotiator” on social media It’s time to face reality: The Orange Man is not going to help PRRD. He has been silent about the Old Man’s kidnapping and extrajudicial surrender ever since it happened.

I would have to admit that this proposal might be “suntok sa buwan,” or “a punch at the moon.” But a future President Sara Duterte should sign a law like this. It would send a message that we are serious about our sovereignty. We are not Filipinos for nothing, after all.

If the Americans can zealously protect their citizens and justice system from foreign interference, even to the point of invading The Hague, why can’t we? Is it any crazier than going to war with our nuclear-armed superpower neighbor or allegedly sending our young men to die for Ukraine thousands of miles away?

And anyway, the ICC’s basis for issuing an arrest warrant against President Duterte for “crimes against humanity” is bogus, in my view. It comes from inflated statistics and atrocity propaganda by Rappler, a media outlet funded in the millions by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an NGO financed by the U.S. government. Allan Weinstein, one of NED’s co-founders, once described it as openly doing the work of the CIA, the top U.S. spy agency.

The ICC also cites reports from Human Rights Watch (HRW), headquartered in New York City, which estimates “12,000 to 30,000 deaths” in police anti-drug operations. HRW is an NGO that has received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Open Society Foundation, owned by liberal billionaire George Soros, a global advocate for drug decriminalization and legalization. Soros personally committed to donating $100 million over ten years to HRW. It is worth noting that these numbers do not come from primary sources but rather secondary data and self-estimates.

A crime against humanity is a state policy intended to target and harm civilians because they are civilians. The War on Drugs does not fit this category. It was a state policy intended to fight crime, which did result in collateral damage: many cases involving police officers exercising self-defense against armed suspects who fought back.

The Philippines has not been an ICC member state since March 2019, which means that any and all warrants issued by that foreign kangaroo court are null and void. Our Constitution vests judicial power solely in the Supreme Court and other Philippine courts. In my view, any Filipino police officer, or their superior, who attempts to implement this ICC warrant against Senator Bato can be charged with kidnapping and illegal detention. We have no obligation whatsoever to cooperate with a cabal of unelected European foreigners, even for alleged crimes supposedly committed when we were still a member.

As for me, I, with millions of Filipinos, remain firm believers that Tatay Digong will come home alive.

Again, you don’t play legal games with foreign kidnappers; you fight to rescue the elderly victim they’re holding hostage!

   

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