Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on Tuesday in Manila by police acting on an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) related to his deadly war on drugs.
The 79-year-old faces charges of “crimes against humanity of murder,” according to the ICC, for a crackdown that human rights organizations claim led to the deaths of tens of thousands of mostly poor individuals, often without evidence linking them to drugs.
The presidential palace released a statement saying, “Early in the morning, Interpol Manila received the official copy of the arrest warrant from the ICC.” It further added, “As of now, he is under the custody of authorities,” and that Duterte and his group were in good health and being checked by government doctors.
Duterte’s former chief legal counsel, Salvador Panelo, criticized the arrest as “unlawful.”
He claimed that the Philippine National Police prevented one of Duterte’s lawyers from meeting him at the airport to challenge the legal grounds for his arrest, adding that they had not been provided with a hard copy of the ICC’s warrant.
However, a group that had supported the mothers of those killed in Duterte’s drug war celebrated the arrest as a “very welcome development.” Rubilyn Litao, coordinator for Rise Up for Life and for Rights, said, “The mothers whose husbands and children were killed because of the drug war are very happy because they have been waiting for this for a very long time.”
Human Rights Watch also welcomed the move, urging President Ferdinand Marcos’ government to “swiftly surrender Duterte to the ICC,” calling the arrest a “critical step for accountability in the Philippines.”
Duterte was detained at Manila’s international airport after a brief trip to Hong Kong. During a speech to overseas Filipino workers there on Sunday, he vehemently criticized the ICC investigation, calling its investigators “sons of whores” and stating that he would “accept it” if arrest was his fate.
The Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019 under Duterte’s orders, but the court maintained jurisdiction over the killings that occurred before the withdrawal and during his time as mayor of Davao.
In September 2021, the ICC launched a formal investigation, which was briefly suspended after the Philippines announced it would review several hundred drug operation-related deaths.
The case resumed in July 2023 after the court rejected the Philippines’ objection to its jurisdiction.
Despite the ongoing investigation, the Marcos administration has repeatedly stated that it would not cooperate. However, Undersecretary of the Presidential Communications Office, Claire Castro, said on Sunday that if Interpol requested assistance from the government, it was obliged to comply.
Duterte remains a popular figure in the Philippines, especially among those who supported his tough approach to crime, and he continues to be a significant political presence.
He is currently running for mayor of Davao, his political stronghold, in May’s mid-term election.
Locally, charges have been filed in a few cases related to deaths from drug operations, but only nine police officers have been convicted for killing alleged drug suspects.
Duterte, who has admitted to personally killing suspects, directed police to shoot narcotics offenders if their lives were at risk, claiming the crackdown saved families and prevented the Philippines from becoming a “narco-politics state.”
At the opening of a Senate investigation into the drug war in October, Duterte declared, “I did what I had to do, and whether or not you believe it or not, I did it for my country,” offering “no apologies, no excuses” for his actions.
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