Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at a campaign rally in March. Duterte was arrested and extradited to The Hague in March to stand trial for crimes against humanity. Photo / Getty Images
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte at a campaign rally in March. Duterte was arrested and extradited to The Hague in March to stand trial for crimes against humanity. Photo / Getty Images
Former President Rodrigo Duterte, who faces international court charges of crimes against humanity, remains very popular at home.
Six weeks ago, a van piled high with flowers pulled up at the International Criminal Court’s detention centre in The Hague. The court also received deliveries of birthday cards. Lots and lotsof them.
They were all for the newest inmate, Rodrigo Duterte, the former President of the Philippines, who turned 80 on March 28. He is accused of crimes against humanity, and he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
“The place was inundated with flowers, and I brought some of the mail out because they didn’t know what to do with it,” Nicholas Kaufman, Duterte’s lawyer, said in a telephone interview. He said he had left with three sacks of mail for Duterte that the court was unable to vet. In the Philippines, thousands of people dressed in the green associated with Duterte’s political party flooded the streets of Davao City.
Duterte, who ordered a brutal anti-drug campaign in which tens of thousands of people died during his presidency, remains very popular in the Philippines. With Filipinos voting in midterm elections Monday, he is expected to win another term as mayor of Davao City, his eighth, by a landslide. For now, he remains eligible for office.
Duterte’s sudden arrest and extradition to The Hague in March has sharply divided the Philippines. While some polls show that a majority of Filipinos back the international investigation, many of Duterte’s supporters believe that he is a victim of political persecution by President Ferdinand Marcos jnr, once an ally of the Duterte clan.
Soon after Duterte’s dramatic arrest, Marcos’ approval rating plummeted to 25% from 42% a month earlier, in a survey conducted by Pulse Asia. But that of Sara Duterte – the current Vice-President and daughter of Rodrigo Duterte – rose to 59% from 52%.
Sara Duterte has long been considered a future presidential candidate. But this election, in which half the Senate is up for grabs, could prove pivotal for her. She has been impeached on charges that include corruption, plotting to assassinate Marcos, involvement in the drug war killings and incitement to insurrection, and the country’s 24 senators will decide this summer whether to convict her.
In Davao, where Rodrigo Duterte remains beloved after 22 years as mayor, his dynasty is thriving. A son, Sebastian, who is likely to win the vice mayoral race, is expected to act as mayor if his father wins. At least seven members of his family could join the local government.
For the first time ever, three political families – the Nograleses, the Garcias, and the Al-ags – are combining forces to challenge the Dutertes, their former political ally, in Davao. But even Bernie Al-ag – who is now running against Sebastian Duterte – said he was unhappy about Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest.
“I also look at him as a father figure,” said Al-ag, who is a former vice mayor of Davao. “I continue to pray for him.”
Mags Maglana, a nongovernmental organisation worker who is running for a congressional seat against Paolo Duterte, another of Rodrigo Duterte’s sons, said that before Duterte’s arrest, people in Davao could differentiate between the patriarch and those around him.
But she is now concerned that “the outpouring of sympathy for the father would cascade over to the rest of the family”.
Rodrigo Duterte’s camp has used his case in The Hague as a campaign tool. At a rally in Manila on Thursday, a video of his arrest was played. His supporters wore T-shirts and carried posters that said: “BRING HIM HOME.” Sara Duterte told the attendees that the country was “paying the price for electing the wrong leader”.
“What’s even more painful is that they managed to kidnap the former president and hurriedly threw him into another country to be tried by foreigners,” she said.
That other country, the Netherlands, is far removed from the life that Rodrigo Duterte is used to.
Tens of thousands of supporters of Duterte gather on the streets of Davao City on his 80th birthday calling for his return to the Philippines. Photo / Getty Images
The first issue was the food. (It is unclear what exactly is served in the detention facility but Liberia’s former President, Charles Taylor, once complained that the food was too “Eurocentric”.)
Fadi El Abdallah, an ICC spokesperson, said the court did not comment on matters related to the private life of detainees.
Rodrigo Duterte said he was “not used” to the meals on offer, according to Kaufman, prompting the lawyer to request “culturally appropriate food”. For Duterte, that is rice – which he is getting now, according to Sara Duterte.
“That’s what we asked for and it’s cooked perfectly,” she told reporters at The Hague earlier. “Correct according to Filipino taste.”
Rodrigo Duterte’s family was allowed to supply him with groceries including his much-needed Coke Zero, according to Sara Duterte. She told reporters that he had complained about why he was only getting Coke Zero once a day, and that he needed at least two cans a day.
Life is regimented. Rodrigo Duterte huddles with Kaufman every morning in a conference room. In the afternoon, he meets with some family members. He’s allowed time to exercise in a gym that is set up with a court to play basketball, tennis and badminton. There is another communal space with a foosball table. He is one of six people in custody, according to court records.
According to Sara Duterte, her father, who is diabetic, has nurses monitoring him. He has access to library books and a computer that allows him to review his defence filings but is not connected to the internet. In the late mornings or afternoons, he’s allowed to make telephone calls to numbers that have been vetted in advance. He has a television so he can watch the news.
“Jokingly, some people refer to it as a five star Hilton,” Kaufman said. “But it’s still prison.”
The small detention facility is within a Dutch prison in The Hague. The first head of state to be held there was Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo. He was acquitted with another Ivorian political leader, Charles Blé Goudé, who was represented by Kaufman.
In a filing to the court this month, Kaufman argued that there was no legal basis for the case against Duterte because the Philippines was no longer a state party to the Rome Statute – the treaty that forms the basis for the court’s legal authority – when the court allowed an investigation into the drug war in September 2021. His lawyers called for Duterte’s immediate and unconditional release.
A hearing for the confirmation of charges is scheduled for September 23.
In Davao, dozens of volunteers have camped out in front of Duterte’s house since his arrest. Janice Mahipus, 45, an online seller, said she had been sleeping outside the house, first on cartons on the floor and then on a bed a few metres away.
“We will never get tired waiting for him,” she said.
