Once again: What ‘kidnapping’?

From that fateful day in March this year when former President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by authorities on the strength of an International Criminal Court warrant, then flown to The Hague, Netherlands to stand trial for crimes against humanity for his brutal drug war, the Duterte camp’s main talking points have been consistent: The arrest was illegal, the ICC has no jurisdiction over the Philippines, and Duterte’s handover to a foreign court was a kidnapping.

As late as last month, Vice President Sara Duterte was still spouting that core propaganda line by her family and supporters: The elder Duterte was “kidnapped” and subjected to “extraordinary rendition.”

Never mind that for a “kidnapping,” Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest was a most extraordinary one. It was backed by a valid warrant from the ICC, and served by the International Criminal Police Organization. Every minute of Duterte’s detention at Villamor Air Base upon his arrival from a Hong Kong rally with OFWs was documented by cell phone cameras, from negotiations with his lawyers to scuffles with police officers involving his common-law partner, Honeylet Avanceña.

Unfit for trial

In the drawn-out proceedings live streamed by his daughter Kitty Duterte, Rodrigo Duterte had his legal counsel present throughout, as well as a coterie of aides, doctors, and other lawyers. He was read his constitutional rights and presented a printed copy of the ICC warrant, and at one point was even allowed to take a nap in an adjacent room as negotiations for his flight stretched on for 12 hours.

At Scheveningen Prison in The Hague where he is now detained, Rodrigo Duterte has been visited a number of times by family members. He has retained the services of a high-profile defense counsel, Nicolas Kaufman, who is unrestrained in his media pronouncements. And the trial itself is effectively stalled for now because Kaufman has claimed that Rodrigo Duterte—just months ago still swaggering before his perceived enemies—is now so frail and forgetful that he is unfit for trial, forcing the court to have him examined by a battery of medical experts.

Some kidnapping this is. It’s one thing, of course, for the Duterte family and their defenders to sustain their preferred narrative, however false and untenable, about the ex-President.

Political heat

It’s completely a different thing when a top official of the Marcos administration—which demonstrated spine and took considerable political heat for the conscientious decision to have Rodrigo Duterte account for his actions—adopts the same line and blasts it publicly while still ensconced in his government post. In a social media post that appears to have been subsequently deleted, Teodoro Locsin Jr., the Philippine ambassador to the United Kingdom, baldly stated: “Rodrigo Duterte was not arrested by the ICC, he was abducted by Filipinos in the Philippines and handed over to foreigners.”

Having a foreign court try a Filipino citizen was “treason,” added Locsin, an act that “foreswore the first attribute of sovereign independence—an effective justice system.”

Following public uproar over the post, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), which in the Duterte years was headed by Locsin, lamely said it couldn’t confirm that Locsin himself wrote the post, and would “seek clarification” about it.

How hard is it for the DFA to ring up Locsin directly, demand an explanation for his remarks that undermine his own government’s policy, and if warranted recall him from the prestigious post he’s been enjoying under the Marcos administration?

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Vintage Locsin

While the DFA is dragging its feet in confirming the post’s actual authorship, the provocation itself is vintage Locsin. This was the same unfettered official who, as the country’s nominee for ambassador to the United Nations at the time and an ardent supporter of Duterte’s drug war, tweeted words on August 2016 that triggered widespread outrage: “I believe that the Drug Menace is so big it needs a FINAL SOLUTION like the Nazis adopted. That I believe. NO REHAB.” Locsin later deleted the tweet—apparently the same tack he did with his Duterte “kidnapping” post when the public upbraided him for it.

Locsin is also a lawyer, so he should know what the Supreme Court said in 2021: The Philippines is obligated to cooperate with the ICC despite the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute—a withdrawal that, not incidentally, Rodrigo Duterte ordered to shield himself from future prosecution for the excesses of the bloody policy he had unleashed as Davao City mayor, and later as president.

But, according to the high court, “Liability for the alleged summary killings and other atrocities committed in the course of the war on drugs is not nullified or negated … The Philippines remained covered and bound by the Rome Statute until March 17, 2019.”

Loud and clear and definitive. Rodrigo Duterte was not kidnapped, and his day in court at The Hague is just, sound, and warranted.