Ex-president should be handed to ICC as families of victims deserve truth, reparations, and justice, they say.
Newsroom (11/03/25 20:37, Gaudium Press) The Catholic Church, along with rights groups and families of victims of the Philippine “war on drugs,” has welcomed the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte, saying his inhuman policy “violated the fundamental right to life.”
Duterte was arrested by the Philippine government on March 11 at Manila airport after it received an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity.
The killings during his brutal anti-drugs crackdown “were not random; they were part of a policy that violated the fundamental right to life,” said Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, vice president of Caritas Philippines.
Duterte ruled the country from 2016 to 2022 with an iron fist, having swept to power on the promise of waging war on drugs in the Catholic-majority nation in Southeast Asian.
Several thousands were killed, with many of the victims young men from impoverished shanty towns, shot by rogue police and gunmen.
Police data put the number of extrajudicial killings at more than 6,000, though independent monitors believe the number could be much higher.
“For years, Duterte claimed he was ready to face the consequences of his actions. Now is the time for him to prove it,” said Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo, president of Caritas Philippines.
In a March 11 statement to the media, the humanitarian arm of the nation’s Catholic bishops’ conference said: “The families of the victims deserve truth, reparations, and justice.”
“As a nation, we must ensure that such crimes never happen again. The rule of law must prevail. Justice must be served. Let this be a turning point for our nation — a step toward healing, accountability, and real change,” it added.
The arrest of Duterte “is deeply personal for me,” said Laila De Lima, former senator and justice secretary, who was the first top official imprisoned during his term in office.
“For almost seven years, I was imprisoned on fabricated charges, accused of crimes I did not commit — all because I dared to speak out against Duterte’s drug war,” she said.
De Lima said in a statement that while she was behind bars, thousands of Filipinos were killed “without justice, their families left to grieve with no answers, no accountability.”
“Today, Duterte is being made to answer — not to me, but to the victims, to their families, to a world that refuses to forget. This is not about vengeance. This is about justice finally taking its course,” she added.
Rights group Karapatan welcomed the arrest of Duterte as “a long overdue product of Filipino people’s campaign for justice and accountability.”
“Duterte should be made accountable for the extrajudicial killings in the anti-drug war as well as the extrajudicial killings of activists and revolutionaries who had been rendered hors de combat,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan.
She said both the anti-drug war and counter-insurgency drive were essentially anti-poor and replete with horrendous violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
“Now that Duterte has been arrested, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should make sure that he is actually delivered to the ICC for detention and trial,” Palabay told UCA News on March 11.
Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Duterte’s arrest “is a critical step for accountability in the Philippines.”
The Marcos government should swiftly surrender him to the ICC, she said in a statement to the media on March 11.
“His arrest could bring victims and their families closer to justice and sends the clear message that no one is above the law,” Lau added.
Activist lawyer Aaron Pedrosa said that Duterte’s bloody war on drugs killed thousands, “including defenseless children and teenagers like Kian del Santos.”
“Duterte did not act alone. The war on drugs was a criminal conspiracy carried out by his henchmen, like the then chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), General Ronald dela Rosa, who is a senator now,” Pedrosa said.
In March 2018, the ICC launched a preliminary inquiry into the Philippines’ drug war. In response, Duterte slammed the ICC and announced withdrawal from the Rome Statute.
The Philippine government withdrew from the ICC, effective March 2019.
“The ICC continued to exercise jurisdiction over the case ruling that the prosecution may still investigate the alleged ‘crimes against humanity’ because they occurred when the Philippines was still a party to the statute,” Pedrosa explained.
Pedrosa said it was impossible to secure justice from the courts in the Philippines as the entire government machinery was designed to enforce tokhang (anti-drug operational method).
“In short, one could not expect justice from the prosecutor, executor and judge [in the Philippines] on Duterte’s war on drugs,” the lawyer activist said.
Pedrosa said that Duterte’s “kill, kill, kill policy” effectively set aside and violated constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms, including the right to life and due legal process.
“Now, Duterte is invoking the same rights, plus resorting to theatrics to appeal to public emotion, in his defense,” Pedrosa added.
Salvador Panelo, a Filipino lawyer who served as Duterte’s chief presidential legal counsel and spokesperson, said the arrest “is unlawful.”
“The IC has no jurisdiction over the Philippines. The government action will be criminally liable,” Panelo said in a statement on March 11.
Many of Duterte’s supporters were upset, but Andrea Trinidad, a member from a victim’s family, urged them “to look beyond the propaganda and search for the truth.”
The sister of lawyer Anthony Trinidad who was killed in June 2019 in Negros Oriental Province, said the supporters should put themselves “in the shoes of those left behind — grieving parents, siblings, spouses, and children who will never see justice.”
“Supporting a leader should not mean turning a blind eye to the innocent lives lost under his rule. Justice should never be selective. If this happened to your own family, would you still defend him?” Trinidad wrote on social media.
Filipino lawyer Kristina Conti, who served as an assistant to the ICC counsel, said the former president must be swiftly brought to The Hague, Netherlands.
“When a person is arrested under a warrant of arrest from the ICC, he should be turned over to a law enforcement officer of a member state, to be flown to The Hague, The Netherlands ASAP,” Conti said in a statement.
Amnesty International, in a statement, called on Philippine authorities to “surrender Duterte to the ICC” and also “to rejoin the Rome Statute and cooperate fully with the ICC’s investigation, including if further arrest warrants are issued against other former and current Philippine government officials.”
“The ICC has been carrying out investigations into possible crimes against humanity including murders committed in the context of the deadly ‘war on drugs’ under the administration of President Duterte and also those in Davao City by the alleged Davao Death Squad while he was Mayor of Davao from 2011 to 2016,” Amnesty said.
- with files from UCAN news
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