Philippines’ Ex-President Duterte Arrested Under I.C.C. Warrant

Rodrigo Duterte, the former Philippine president, was arrested on Tuesday in Manila and was flown to The Hague to face International Criminal Court charges of crimes against humanity.

For years the bodies piled up.

Some were shot by vigilantes on motorbikes. Others had bullets in the head, execution style. In killing after killing, the police would only describe the victims as “drug suspects” who had resisted arrest, a charge that rarely stood up to even minor scrutiny. And yet the slaughter continued with impunity, at the behest of the man who was elected president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.

But on Tuesday, nearly three years after Mr. Duterte left office, a major step was taken toward accountability for thousands of Filipinos who have long sought justice for their loved ones. Acting on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, which had been investigating Mr. Duterte’s antidrug campaign, the Philippine authorities arrested Mr. Duterte at Manila’s main airport as he returned from a trip to Hong Kong. On Tuesday night, he was flown out on a plane that was bound for The Hague, where the court is based, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The I.C.C. accused Mr. Duterte, 79, of crimes against humanity during his time as president and when he was the mayor of the city of Davao. His case will be a high-profile test of the court, which in recent months has sought the arrest of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the head of the military junta in Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing, on the same charges as Mr. Duterte. But those orders are unlikely to come to fruition, much like the court’s warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that was issued two years ago.

Mr. Duterte’s camp said his detention was illegal, arguing in part that the I.C.C. had no jurisdiction in the Philippines because he had withdrawn the country from the court when he was president. But in the warrant, a three-judge panel wrote that it was investigating killings during the time the Philippines was still a member of the court. And the nation remains a member of Interpol, which can seek arrests on behalf of the I.C.C. A representative of Interpol was present when Mr. Duterte was arrested.

Mr. Duterte’s arrest pierced the culture of impunity he had built around his so-called death squads. Even after his single, six-year term ended, he seemed to be above justice. His successor, Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., rose to the presidency after forming a political alliance with Mr. Duterte’s daughter, Sara, who became vice president. Early in his administration, Mr. Marcos indicated that he would not cooperate with the I.C.C.

But ties between Mr. Marcos and Ms. Duterte unraveled quickly and in spectacular fashion. By late 2023, Mr. Marcos’s government had quietly allowed I.C.C. investigators to enter the Philippines.

Harry Roque, Mr. Duterte’s spokesman, said his lawyers were scrambling to file a petition in court for his release.

In a statement, Ms. Duterte said her father was “being forcibly taken to The Hague.” She added, “This is not justice — this is oppression and persecution.”

Before he was elected in 2016, Mr. Duterte announced that he would crack down on drugs and that the country’s “drug pushers, holdup men and do-nothings” had better leave because he would “kill” them. Rights groups say roughly 30,000 ended up dying in his war on drugs.

Soon after Mr. Duterte was inaugurated, a group of policemen barged into Mary Ann Domingo’s tiny apartment, killing her partner and son. Last June, in a rare conviction, a judge ruled that the four police officers who participated in the operation were guilty of homicide. But they still have not been imprisoned.

“I don’t feel any sense of justice,” Ms. Domingo said. “Duterte has no remorse.”

Even as he took responsibility for the carnage, Mr. Duterte seemed untouchable, until Tuesday. His arrest brought tears of joy and frustration.

“It took so long, so many lives,” said Grace Garganta, 32, whose father and brother were killed by masked men just a few hours apart on July 2016 in Navotas.

“I almost lost hope, but this has renewed the sense of hope in me because even small victims like us can stand a chance against Duterte and his powerful men,” she said in tears.

In Manila, a coffee shop staffed primarily by the mothers and wives, sisters and daughters of the drug war victims offered customers 50 percent off drinks. In Quezon City, a special
Mass was organized to remember the victims, whose photographs were placed before candles.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Leila de Lima, a former senator who had been detained for six years after she criticized Mr. Duterte’s war on drugs. “This is something I had been hoping and praying for. And here it is, the time for reckoning is before us.”

For decades, Mr. Duterte operated with seemingly no bounds. As mayor of Davao, the second-largest city in the Philippines, for more than two decades, he ran a deadly antidrug crackdown with impunity. In 2016, he parlayed his law-and-order credentials into a victory in the presidential election, even though experts said the country did not have an outsized problem with drugs.

Even as they continued to mourn their relatives, many Filipinos could not imagine a day when Mr. Duterte would be in custody. On Friday, Mr. Duterte embarked on what appeared to be a sudden trip to Hong Kong. Speculation was rife: Was he trying to outrun an I.C.C. arrest?

But on Tuesday, he returned to the Philippines and remained characteristically defiant.

“You would have to kill me first, if you are going to ally with white foreigners,” Mr. Duterte said as he was getting off the plane from Hong Kong, according to a video posted by GMA News, a Philippine broadcaster.

Soon after, he was handed down a warrant from the I.C.C. In the warrant, three judges of the I.C.C. said that they believed Mr. Duterte was responsible for the drug war killings that took place when he was president and mayor of Davao, and that there were reasonable grounds to believe that these attacks were “both widespread and systematic.”

Raquel Fortun has examined 117 bodies — many with multiple shots to the head and the torso — from the drug war, in her role as a forensic pathologist. She said she had always asked each one for help in seeking justice.

“I still have got them on my tables,” she said. “I couldn’t go to them now, but I told my staff: ‘Can you please tell them that Duterte has been caught?’”

Last year, the Philippines’ House of Representatives launched an inquiry into Mr. Duterte’s drug war. The former president refused to testify in the House but appeared at a hearing in the Senate, where he has considerable support, in October.

“For all of its successes and shortcomings, I, and I alone, take full legal responsibility,” he said of the antidrug campaign. “For all the police did pursuant to my orders, I will take responsibility. I should be the one jailed, not the policemen who obeyed my orders.”

With Tuesday’s developments, that appeared to be a possibility.

Marlise Simons contributed reporting from Paris, and Aie Balagtas See from Manila.