Wanted: Filipino, Cebuano interpreters for Duterte trial
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is looking for interpreters of the Filipino and Cebuano languages to work on witness testimony and other court-related matters ahead of the trial of former President Rodrigo Duterte in November.
The ICC opened a job posting on its website last week for a paraprofessional interpreter and an associate court interpreter with a contract until Dec. 31 this year. The posting will close on July 4.
The paraprofessional interpreter post will receive a minimum net annual salary of 55,665 euros (about P4 million), while the associate court interpreter will get 71,173 euros (P5.1 million). Both will be based in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Among the responsibilities are interpreting the testimonies of witnesses and other subjects, including “legal/forensic discourse,” studying their statements, preparing for interpretation assignments and compiling vocabulary lists.
They should possess “mother tongue proficiency” in Filipino and/or Cebuano and a “high level proficiency” in English to be able to provide “retour interpretation” of the languages.
The interpreters who will get the job will undergo intensive training and will be constantly assessed by the trainers of the Language Services Section, which is under the Registry, the ICC’s administrative arm. They will also be reporting directly to the head of the Situation Languages Unit.
Real-time translation
The need for translation services of the English language to Filipino and/or Cebuano was discussed during the first status conference last month for Duterte’s trial. The former president is facing three counts of murder as a crime against humanity for the drug war killings under his watch.
During the status conference, Presiding Judge Joanna Korner of the Trial Chamber (TC) III, which will try Duterte, asked the Registry to arrange the interpretation services so that the audience from the Philippines would be able to understand the statements on the trial’s opening day.
The legal representatives of victims in the ICC earlier said they preferred a real-time translation of both Filipino and Cebuano, but would still welcome should the court only provide translation for only one local language.
Surrender of co-perpetrators
Trial lawyer Julian Nicholls of the prosecution also urged the TC III to make the trial stage accessible to Filipino audiences.
“It’s also likely that some of the population from which a lot of the victims in this case were drawn do not speak English,” he said.
The ICC also looked for Filipino and Cebuano translators in 2024, when Duterte was not yet charged and was just under investigation, as well as transcribers of the same languages in 2025, when the ex-president was already arrested and turned over to the ICC.
National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag, meanwhile, has vowed to immediately facilitate the surrender of Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and other possible subjects of ICC warrants once his agents are able to execute the arrest.
In a roundtable discussion with the Inquirer on Friday, Matibag said that upon arrest, law enforcement authorities would have to bring Dela Rosa to the Department of Justice (DOJ) or to any prosecutor.
Dela Rosa, a former police chief, has been named as one of Duterte’s co-perpetrators.
“There’s a guidance–once we make an arrest, whether the PNP (Philippine National Police) or the NBI, we have to turn over to the DOJ for proper disposal,” Matibag told editors and reporters.
This, he said, was based on existing Philippine laws that a subject of an arrest warrant by an international tribunal has to be surrendered. But the suspect would have to be brought first to a local prosecutor for “identification,” noted Matibag.
Duterte’s other co-perpetrators named by the ICC prosecution were former Davao City police chiefs Vicente Danao and Isidro Lapeña; and former PNP chiefs Oscar Albayalde and Camilo Cascolan.
Also tagged were Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go, former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II and former NBI chief Dante Gierran.
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