[Vantage Point] Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest polarizes Philippine politics
Former president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest on the strength of a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) seemed like wishful thinking or a mirage; that is, until it finally happened.
The narrative remains pervasive: Mr. Duterte had to adopt extreme measures to save the nation. Those killed in the war on drugs, so the rationale goes, deserved their fate because they were criminals; moreover, they resisted arrest and fought back (nanlaban). Besides, what is the value of 6,000 lives lost — the official count — in a population of 115 million?
The actual number of victims, according to human rights activists, is close to 30,000, and many of them had nothing do with the drug trade. The number includes, in fact, children and babies in their mothers’ arms, unintentionally killed, according to the police, and, therefore, categorized as collateral damage. The truth is that the police seems to have very little regard for innocent bystanders when conducting an operation.
At first the target was actual drug users and pushers, but then the killings turned into a frenzy. Everybody became fair game. The poor and the powerless, mostly denizens of the slum areas, were killed like rats. Under a reward system put in place by the regime, the police were paid for every fallen body, depending on the status of the victims.
It turned out — according to whistleblowers Arturo Lascañas and Edgar Matobato the police are paid to kill not just drug suspects, but also — for P10,000 per head — rapists, pickpockets, swindlers, gang members, alcoholics, and other “troublemakers.” The revelations of the two state witnesses now form part of the evidence presented to the ICC. To them, the former president was “the drug lord of all drug lords.”
In the former president’s war on drugs, importers and distributors were spared. If known personalities were killed, these were Mr. Duterte’s critics, political enemies, and — as testified by Lascañas and Matobato — competitors in the lucrative drug trade.
Mr. Duterte’s supporters demand his return, arguing that, being a Filipino, he should only be prosecuted in the Philippines. They say President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was being subservient to foreign powers when he surrendered Mr. Duterte to the ICC, an entity run by white men and women.
Stranglehold of justice system
The subtext of that statement is that the former president cannot expect justice from a race of people who enslaved and exploited the Filipino people for centuries. Never mind the fact that it was ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensoda, dismissed by Mr. Duterte as “that black woman,” who initiated the investigation into his administration’s bloody war on drugs. Moreover, Raul Pangalangan, a Filipino and a graduate of the UP College of Law, once sat as judge in the ICC from June 2015 to March 2021.
Nevertheless, it was a relevant question: Why shouldn’t the Philippine court system try Mr. Duterte?
The answer is simple. In this country, the justice system mostly works for those with more resources.
The anti-graft court Sandiganbayan sentenced Senator Bong Revilla’s chief of staff, Richard Cambe, to a life in prison, and denied former senator Juan Ponce Enrile’s chief of staff, Gigi Reyes, bail for many years, but allowed the principals to go scot-free.
Senator Jinggoy Estrada had a better formula to beat the raps against him. His secretary, Pauline Labayen, identified by a whistleblower to have received the proceeds of the anomalous PDAF transaction on his behalf, did not testify in his trial. It’s not beyond belief that he might have financed her expenses while she was on the run.
The graft court did convict him for bribery, but even that verdict, practically a slap on the wrist, was overturned on appeal.
Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” Remulla summed it well. It is impossible to prosecute the former president, then as now. “Cops threatened fiscals (prosecutors),” he explains.
The legacy of fear still haunts the nation. The possibility of the family regaining power through Vice President Sara Duterte paralyzed the Philippine court system. No judge will entertain a case against her father, if indeed a prosecutor is foolish enough to file it.
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. could be complicit to the mass murder. He made Ms. Duterte his running mate, knowing full well that she and her father had blithely caused the deaths of thousands.
Even though the President handed Mr. Duterte over to the ICC, it is not to give justice to the victims, but to eliminate a threat to his administration. But if that was what it is needed to make the former president pay for his crimes, so be it. God works in mysterious ways.
Uniteam breaks up
The crack in the UniTeam started immediately after the 2022 presidential election.
Ms. Duterte felt that she could be co-president the way Lucius Verus was co-emperor with his adoptive brother Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor from 16 to 180. And why the hell not, she must have thought? Ms. Duterte obtained a million more votes than Marcos. She carried him to the finish line, not the other way around.
For her share of the spoils of victory, she asked for the defense department portfolio. The president gave her the Department of Education (DepEd) instead.
As long as the UniTeam held, Mr. Duterte was safe from prosecution, but he overplayed his hand. He criticized President Marcos, tentatively at first, even playfully, but then, encouraged by the positive response he got from his supporters, he went all out. He demanded, as did his two sons, Davao City 1st District Representative Paolo “Polong” and Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste”, that Marcos resign from the presidency.
Ms. Duterte, furious over the investigation being conducted by Congress into her alleged misuse of the DepEd and the Office of the Vice President’s confidential funds, went on a ranting rampage, announcing that she had already contracted a killer or killers to go after President Marcos, the First Lady, and the House Speaker if something bad were to befall her.
Meanwhile, the families of the Duterte drug war victims slammed President Marcos for his inability to investigate and charge his predecessor.
It turned out that the inaction was strategic. If the justice department had charged Mr. Duterte — and only President Marcos could order Secretary Remulla to do so — the move would have stopped the ICC on its tracks.
Under the Complementary Principle, “The ICC may only exercise jurisdiction when the national [i.e. the Philippine] legal system fails to do so…”
President Marcos may have won the initial battle, having successfully bundled off Mr. Duterte to The Hague, but the war is not yet over. He may have forestalled the threat to his administration — the possibility of a coup d’etat (it has been tried nine times according to military sources) — but he and his family are still in mortal danger.
The late president Corazon “Cory” Aquino no doubt believed that the soldiers who waylaid her husband Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. at the airport tarmac on August 21, 1983, did so on orders of either then-Armed Forces chief Fabian Ver or then-First Lady Imelda Marcos herself. During her term, however, President Cory did not seek revenge.
Very much her father’s daughter, Ms. Duterte plays by a different set of rules. If she were to become president — and she remains hugely popular — she may hunt all of them down: President Marcos, the First Lady, and their children and grandchildren. She has the capability and character to expunge the whole clan from the face of the earth. – Rappler.com