by Daniel Long

 

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has named Senators Bato Dela Rosa and Bong Go, and other high-ranking officials of the past administration, as co-perpetrators of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s war against illegal drugs. In a redacted February 13 document, the ICC named several former officials as alleged co-perpetrators in connection with former President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign. Among those mentioned are:

• Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa: former chief of Davao City Police and Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief
• Vicente Danao: former chief of Davao City Police and Deputy Director for Operations of the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group
• Camilo Cascolan: former finance chief of the Davao Region Police Office and PNP Chief for the Directorate for Operations
• Oscar Albayalde: former regional director of the National Capital Region Police Office
• Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go: Duterte’s former personal aide and Special Assistant
• Dante Gierran: former Davao regional director for the National Bureau of Investigation
• Isidro Lapeña: former Davao City Police chief and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency chief
• Vitaliano Aguirre II: former Justice Secretary

The ICC has also released the formal “Document Containing the Charges” against former President Rodrigo Duterte. The 16-page report states: “At least between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019, Duterte and his co-perpetrators shared a common plan or agreement to ‘neutralise’ alleged criminals in the Philippines.” Three main counts of murder are filed:
1. Davao City (2013-2016): 19 victims
2. High-Value Targets (2016-2017): 14 victims linked to P1M rewards
3. Barangay Ops (2016-2018): 43 murders and 2 attempted murders, including 3 children

PRRD is accused of designing the policy, ordering hitmen, and promising immunity to killers. Named co-perpetrators include Senators Bato dela Rosa and Bong Go, and several former PNP chiefs.

So here we are, almost a year later, still suffering the indignity of having a Filipino citizen, the most popular and trusted President (81%, SWS 2022), and the Father of the Philippine Nation, who fought illegal drugs and kept our communities safe from crime, remaining, and most likely perishing, at the hands of a foreign European kangaroo court.

I do not agree that the charges filed against former President Rodrigo Duterte constitute crimes against humanity. 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, including many cases involving police officers exercising self-defense against armed suspects who fought back.

And for the record, President Duterte’s fiery “kill, kill, kill” rhetoric, delivered in his political speeches, is not evidence of state intent to harm civilians. He merely spoke in a hyperbolic way that criminals understood and frightened them into either surrendering to authorities or stopping their wrongdoing.

The professional police officers of the PNP have received years of basic training, and they have discernment regarding lawful and unlawful orders. It is not legally sound or possible to transfer the personal guilt of murderous and ninja cops onto the Old Man or the Bald Senator.

It is preposterous for Yellow leaders and their woke supporters, detached from reality, to pretend that drug syndicates worth billions of pesos would simply surrender peacefully when confronted by authorities. There was even a museum dedicated to “EJK victims” that opened in the Senate a few weeks ago – I found it funny that the theatrical display was blessed by someone who had previously admitted to being a drug dependent for more than a decade.

To those who support the ICC’s recent decisions, I ask: Do you care about the millions of Filipinos victimized by drug traffickers and drug lords?
Do you cry for the communities and neighborhoods terrorized by drug pushers?
Do you think about the innocent people murdered or raped by drug addicts?
Do you feel pity for the parents who lost their children to overdose?
Do you care about the OFWs whose remittances only ended up funding addiction?
Do you remember the police officers who lost their lives because drug pushers resisted arrest?
Do you think about the children who stopped going to school because their parents wasted their tuition money on drugs?

When 5-year-old Bella was murdered, raped, and stuffed inside a sack by alleged drug addicts while Christmas caroling last December 19, 2025, did you put out hashtags on social media for her, call for justice, and cry about her human rights and due process?

The silent majority of law-abiding Filipino citizens know that he is an elder statesman who was willing to go to hell protecting human lives over the rights of criminal addicts, not a human rights violator as portrayed by communist NPA terrorists, American-funded NGOs, and Makati business elites and oligarchs.

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 or 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 according to the Dangerous Drugs Board, half of whom used shabu.

Unlike other illegal drugs, shabu shrinks the brain and drives users to violent behavior, including 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, constitute the real crime against humanity.

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 pushed by Rappler and VERA Files, media outlets 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. It is worth noting that these numbers do not come from primary sources but rather from secondary data and self-estimates.

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.

In my view, there are two practical ways the former President can still come home. Enough with the lawyers. You do not play legal games with foreign kidnappers and a rigged court; you fight to rescue the elderly victim they are holding hostage.

First, simply wait for U.S. President Trump’s sanctions on the ICC, including restrictions on travel, money transfers, and asset freezes, to totally crush the day-to-day operations of the tribunal, rendering it inutile.

The intention of Trump’s 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 am 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 forthwith 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.

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, who is the frontrunner and the “strongest candidate,” according to former Senate President and Liberal Party chair Franklin Drilon, should sign a law like this. It would send a message that we are serious about our sovereignty.

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? The ICC does not even have a law enforcement agency, much less a military. Is it any crazier than going to war with our nuclear-armed superpower neighbor, China?

No Filipino can call themselves an advocate for the Global South and support the ICC.

There is nothing Makabayan, nationalist, or patriotic about a group of unelected foreigners hijacking the Philippine justice system and trying one of its citizens, much less a former President who left office with an 81% net satisfaction rating from the people.

The ICC is a tool of Western imperialism used to punish leaders from developing countries who refuse to bow down to U.S. economic and military demands and interests.

All ASEAN nations, except Cambodia, are non-member states of the ICC. European countries and Japan are among the kangaroo court’s top funders. The ICC has only ever prosecuted and jailed African leaders, with Duterte being the first Asian one.

They have never gone after the U.K. or the U.S. for war crimes committed during the Iraq War, which left one million dead, mostly civilians, and led to the rise of ISIS.

Meanwhile, the baby killer and mastermind of the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is still at large.

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 these Filipinos 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.

The law-bending officials of this dispensation, through their cooperation with the ICC, insult our national independence and make a mockery of our justice system, imperfect though it may be. Is persecuting the opposition politically the playbook each time the trillion-peso flood control scam leads closer and closer to allies and the head of the current U.S.-backed regime?

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

Finally, I urge everyone to participate in the “Tay, Kami Naman!” global signature campaign, which I believe will pressure the Supreme Court to finally act on the various habeas corpus petitions to declare the “group kidnapping effort” illegal and order the executive branch to facilitate PRRD’s return before it is too late.

   

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