Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has been arrested over the brutal drug war waged during his time in power. Philippines police detained him on March 11, after he arrived at Manila’s international airport from Hong Kong.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued an arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity, related to deadly crackdowns under Duterte as mayor of Davao City and during his presidency. The ICC has estimated that these actions caused up to 30,000 deaths.
“I’d be happy to slaughter them,” Duterte infamously said of “three million drug addicts” in 2016, comparing himself to Hitler. He was president from 2016 to 2022.
Current Philippines President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has pledged to cooperate with the ICC’s case against Duterte, despite having previously blocked the court from continuing its investigation.
As president, Duterte repeatedly mocked the ICC and in 2018 announced the Philippines would withdraw from the Rome Statute, the international treaty recognizing the ICC’s authority. In 2019, the Philippines officially did so. Legally, the ICC can investigate Duterte for his actions while the country was still under its jurisdiction. During those years Duterte served as vice mayor of Davao City, mayor, and finally president.
Duterte is currently in police custody in the Philippines. The ICC court is located in the Hague, in the Netherlands, and he would need to be extradited to stand trial.
“It is incumbent on the present government that investigations do not end with his arrest and extend to domestic-level accountability for all those responsible.”
Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, welcomed Duterte’s arrest in a statement, calling it “a hopeful sign for victims in the Philippines and beyond.”
“It shows that suspected perpetrators of the worst crimes, including government leaders, can and will face justice, wherever they are in the world,” she said. “It is incumbent on the present government that investigations and prosecutions do not end with his arrest and extend to domestic-level accountability for all those responsible for human rights violations in the ‘war on drugs.'”
Callamard called on Marcos Jr.s’ administration to turn over Duterte to the Hague, while ensuring he is afforded legal rights and fair-trial guarantees, and to rejoin the Rome Statute.
After Duterte became president, soldiers, police and armed vigilantes waged a bloody, nationwide campaign against alleged drug users and sellers in the Philippines, as documented by Human Rights Watch. Officers were required to keep lists of suspects, and rewarded for their efforts—official incentives that perpetuated the violence. People were targeted on mere suspicions, and often on the basis of personal or political animosity. Amnesty has also found that police planted evidence, falsified reports and stole from victims’ homes.
It is impossible to know the true toll of this murderous campaign.
Duterte had appeared at a Hong Kong stadium on March 9, along with his daughter Sara Duterte, the current Philippines vice president, and commented on the prospect of his arrest.
“Assuming [the warrant is] true, why did I do it? For myself? For my family? For you and your children, and for our nation,” he said, according to the South China Morning Post. “If this is truly my fate in life, it’s ok, I will accept it. They can arrest me, imprison me … What is my sin? I did everything in my time for peace and a peaceful life for the Filipino people.”
On March 10, President Marcos Jr.’s office confirmed: “Our law enforcers are ready to follow what [the] law dictates, if the warrant of arrest needs to be served because of a request from Interpol.”
“Filipino civil society, human rights activists and community organizations have done impressive work of monitoring and documenting the atrocious crimes committed during Duterte’s ‘war on drugs.'”
Vice President Sara Duterte has been embroiled in a bitter public feud with President Marcos Jr. for months. In November 2024, she told reporters she had arranged for Marcos Jr., his wife and House Speaker Martin Romualdez to be assassinated, if she herself was attacked. The two scions of Philippines political dynasties ran on a unity ticket in 2022, but their alliance soon ruptured.
Now, it seems Marcos Jr. is hoping the ICC case will undermine the Duterte family’s political power. Giada Girelli, senior analyst in the human rights and justice team at Harm Reduction International, said that while Marcos Jr.’s political motives for complying with the ICC are clear, it is nonetheless promising that he is no longer obstructing the case.
“With regards to the proceedings, the ICC’s capacity has been impacted by unprecedented political pressure and resource constraints,” she told Filter. “At the same time, the Court already gathered a good amount of evidence during its preliminary investigation. Notably, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the ICC only issues arrest warrants if it is satisfied that ‘there are reasonable grounds to believe that the person has committed a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court.'”
“Filipino civil society, human rights activists and community organizations, academics, and institutional actors such as the Commission on Human Rights have done impressive work of monitoring and documenting the atrocious crimes committed during Duterte’s ‘war on drugs,’ even when there seemed to be no hope of accountability,” Girelli added.
“Many of the murders were not even recorded as crimes at the time, let alone investigated, forensic evidence wasn’t obtained, recorded and stored.”
However, Tom Smith, an associate professor of international relations at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, wrote for Justice Info that gathering evidence and calling witnesses to testify against Duterte would be challenging and could pose a safety risk to those willing to cooperate. He believes the ICC would need to offer witness protection for anyone who testifies, due to the prospect of reprisals.
“Firstly, many of the murders were not even recorded as crimes at the time, let alone investigated, forensic evidence wasn’t obtained, recorded and stored,” Smith wrote. “Indeed such was the culture of impunity that the blood of the victims and their bodies were washed away, evidence planted, leaving only victims’ families with suffering and no hope of recourse.”
“[Pulling] on one thread enough to build a case will expose the top-to-bottom scale of collusion and entrenched corruption inside the Philippines’ political apparatus …” he continued. “Many of those involved are bonded together over their crimes and that will require a greater force to break than the ICC wields.”
While Marcos Jr. has shifted the rhetoric on drug use from “slaughter them” to “treatment, rehabilitation, education and reintegration,” drug-related killings have continued on his watch. According to the University of the Philippines Dahas Project, there were 342 such killings from July 2022-June 2023 and 359 the following year—both figures higher than in Duterte’s final year in office. In April 2024, the administration boasted that it had overseen record drug seizures and the arrests of over 49,000 people for using or selling drugs.
Photograph of Duterte visiting Seoul National Cemetery in 2018, via Republic of Korea Flickr/Creative Commons 2.0
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