The Tamesis
October 14, 2025
Manila— The most up to date judgment by the International Bad Guy Court (ICC) notes a bittersweet minute. On the one hand, it stands for an essential action towards justice for the numerous sufferers of previous Head of state Rodrigo Duterte’s scorched-earth medication battle.
Nonetheless, it additionally works as a touching tip of the “institutionalized immunity” that exists in our nation.
As numerous professionals forecasted, the ICC had every factor to turn down the Duterte camp’s ask for provisionary launch.
Nevertheless, the previous head of state, that had actually invested years buffooning and disparaging global tribunals, was the best prospect to be declined.
Based on the Rome Law, the essential paper that combines the required of the International Bad Guy Court and its territory, a detainee will be provided provisionary launch if and just if the complying with 3 problems are satisfied: (i) his/her look at court is made certain; (ii) any type of blockage of the examination or procedures is avoided whatsoever, and (iii) any type of prospective for additional criminal conduct is prevented.
Not just was the previous head of state’s very own document and unchecked fatalism, yet his kids’s careless desertion and alarmingly unmoderated public declarations a straight outcome of his best circumstance.
Duterte will likely invest his last years in a bleak, warehouse-like apprehension facility situated in a rural-looking residential area of the infamous The Hague.
It was an especially ignominious end for a dynamic dictator that invested his life ruining organizations and winning ballots via a hazardous blend of demagogic appeal and Machiavellian ruthlessness.
The tragicomic, Dostoevskian tone of the 23-page judgment is hard to disregard.
The court kept in mind that complaints of “kidnapping” by Duterte’s fans, to name a few points, at the ICC might avert any type of opportunity of a respite.
I imply, that intends to “return” to their abductor if provided momentary launch or any type of type of launch? To make issues worse, Vice Head of state Sara Duterte pointed out in securing the offer that her daddy could run away from jail or be deported back to Davao, where he has actually taken pleasure in a macabre “cardboard mayor” regulation considering that the midterm political elections.
The court held that restoring power and political perch would certainly place the lately chosen mayor of Davao City “in a placement that would certainly enable him to dedicate the criminal offense for which he was initially looked for to be apprehended and give up to the court.”
They additionally did not aid Duterte when his household and fans started assaulting and threatening the ICC.
Hopeless charms for “altruistic factors to consider” additionally dropped on deaf ears, as the chamber enjoyed to advise every person of the previous head of state’s reasonably extravagant holiday accommodations and first-rate treatment, consisting of “[a] Apprehension facilities need to be staffed with competent clinical workers with psychological experience [and a] A registered nurse need to exist at the apprehension facility in any way times. “
As previous Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV lately informed me on my podcast “Deep Dive,” apprehension warrants remain in the help Duterte fans such as Sens. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and Christopher “Bong” Wu.
A “Hague Team” circumstance in very early 2026 is for that reason most likely than ever before. Yet the ICC’s crucial treatment is additionally an awful tip of the failing of our very own judicial organizations.
The depressing Us senate resolution last month sustaining Duterte’s provisionary launch is simply the current tip that justice will certainly never ever be attained if Duterte is not turned over to the International Bad Guy Court.
To make issues worse, the Davao Phase of the Integrated Bar Organization of the Philippines granted a “Golden Column of Legislation” to an ICC-level suspect. Even worse than worthless!
Our essential autonomous situation is “institutionalized immunity.” Corruption is much more an outcome than a root cause of our present circumstance.
Corruption expands when immunity dominates, when residential judiciaries have actually fallen short to hold also a solitary elderly main liable in current memory.
Have any one of the “big wheel” been held liable for criminal activities devoted throughout the Marcos tyranny? The number of head of states or legislators have taken complete duty for various corruption detractions over the previous 3 years?
However when, till lately, the judiciary got just one percent of the nationwide spending plan, can we anticipate our justice system to be much more efficient? Do reduced courts deal with approximately 4,000 situations a day? When there is hardly one court for every single 50,000 Filipinos? A court deals with greater than 600 situations a year? When our jail overcapacity is coming close to 400%? Almost two-thirds of those behind bars are pretrial detainees that have never ever been founded guilty of a criminal offense yet have withstood years-long court procedures?
Unless we buy and update our judiciary, the three-way wickedness of corruption, immunity and inexperience will certainly remain to weaken our autonomous goals.
