Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte stepped off a Gulfstream G550 business jet aircraft at Rotterdam The Hague Airport, just before 5 PM local time on 12 March 2025. His chartered jet journey began at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila, with a stopover for “medical checks” at Dubai airport en route. Duterte was arrested in Manila upon his return from Hong Kong, at the behest of Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr and as requested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. Duterte was taken to the ICC Detention Centre, located within the Scheveningen Prison complex, in a seaside district of the Dutch city. Many of his followers had gathered in The Hague, protesting his arrest, while his daughter, Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio travelled to the city later in the day to add her support.
Back in February 2018, the ICC launched a preliminary investigation into deaths during the then-President Duterte’s “war on drugs”, prompting Duterte to withdraw Philippines from the ICC, effective from 17 March 2019. However, under the Rome Statute of 1998 which established the ICC, the court has jurisdiction over, and can investigate, alleged crimes committed while a nation was a member-state of the ICC.
The process of Duterte’s extradition to the Netherlands began with a request from the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC on 24 May 2021 to initiate an investigation into alleged crimes committed as part of the “war on drugs” waged by the Government of the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019. This period covers The Philippines’ membership of the international court. The investigation was authorised by a three-judge Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC on 15 September 2021. The decision was upheld by the Appeals Chamber of the ICC on 18 July 2023. The Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC subsequently issued a 15-page arrest warrant against Duterte, dated 5 March 2025, “for the crimes against humanity of murder, torture and rape”. The Pre-Trial Chamber cited alleged attacks on civilians while Duterte was de facto head of the Davao Death Squad and later as President of the Philippines.
Rodrigo Roa Duterte was born in the island of Leyte in March 1945, the son of a lawyer, who eventually became governor of Davao Province, and a schoolteacher. He will thus spend his 80th birthday in detention. Duterte trained as a lawyer and ended up as a state prosecutor. He served as a seven-term Mayor of Davao City for 22 years, the third largest city of The Philippines, in the southern island of Mindanao, from 1988 onwards, having served as vice-Mayor between 1986 and 1988. He made his name with his hard-hitting attacks on the drug trade, earning plaudits for his attempts to eliminate the scourge of shabu (crystal methamphetamine), the commonest illegal drug in the Philippines. His preferred methods were often random, indiscriminate, and violent, and he encouraged extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers and users by the police, vigilantes, and bounty hunters, thus earning such nicknames as “Duterte Harry” (after fictional police detective Dirty Harry) and “The Punisher.” Duterte even claimed to have shot dead three men as part of his war on drugs. His other victims included petty criminals and street children.
Duterte won a landslide victory in the May 2016 presidential election with his anti-crime and anti-corruption agenda, securing 16,601,997 votes, a six-million-vote advantage over his nearest rival. Leni Robredo, a human rights lawyer opposed to Duterte’s war on drugs, was elected vice-president after narrowly defeating Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the ill-famed Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. As President and chair of the ruling PDP Laban (Partido ng Demokratiko Pilipino Lakas ng Bayan, Philippine Democratic Party- Party of the People), Duterte redoubled his efforts on tackling the Filipino “narco-state.” A nationwide war on drugs was launched on 1 July 2016. Official figures from the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency listed 6,252 deaths from anti-drug operations from July 1, 2016 to May 31, 2022, while estimates of the actual numbers killed range from 20,000 to 30,000. The populist politician, distinguished by his tough talking, and uncompromising anti-establishment and misogynistic rhetoric was soon being likened to Donald Trump. Despite his arrest, he has many supporters in the Philippines who are prepared to overlook the darker side of his rule.
Duterte was nominated as a candidate for vice-president in September 2021, but announced his intention to retire from politics the following month. He was replaced as president by Ferdinand Marcos Jr in June 2022, while Sara Duterte-Carpio, his daughter, was elected vice-president, having defied her father’s wish that she run for president herself. In his first public appearance since demitting office, Duterte confirmed during a televised Senate inquiry on 28 October 2024 that he had employed a “death squad” as mayor of Davao.
The Marcos-Duterte UniTeam alliance has since fallen apart. Marcos has lifted his initial objections and acquiesced with the ICC investigation of ex-President Duterte. Sara Duterte-Carpio has been impeached by the president’s allies in the House of Representatives in February 2025, on charges of allegedly plotting to kill Marcos and misusing public funds. She has resigned as Education Secretary and vice- chair of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.
The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is the latest episode in the unsettled history of the Philippine Republic, which has been marked by dynastic politics, political instability, episodes of authoritarian rule and martial law, Islamist and communist insurgency, widespread corruption and crime, suppression of the media and trade unions, human rights abuses (extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance), economic inequality, and other hallmarks of a ‘democracy’ still in the making. As we await the court’s next moves, Duterte has accepted that “I am responsible” in a video message from the plane conveying him to the Netherlands. He seems guaranteed to earn the dubious distinction of becoming the first-ever Asian head of state to be tried by the International Criminal Court.
Ashis Banerjee