In the aftermath of the Duterte arrest
The arrest and March 11 handover of former president Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a defining moment for the Philippines. To make sense of what may come next, we must look beyond the spectacle and examine the deeper fault lines in our political system.
At the heart of this crisis is a basic truth: Filipino society remains dominated by kinship, not citizenship. Family networks still shape our institutions—from the courts to Congress to Malacañang. Political dynasties continue to treat the state as an extension of their private interests, hollowing out the legal system and reducing democratic participation to little more than a ritual.
This was laid bare during the recent Senate inquiry into Duterte’s transfer to ICC custody. The hearing was led by Sen. Imee Marcos, who has, for reasons of her own, publicly aligned herself with the Duterte family—setting her at odds with her own brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and their cousin, House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
In a scripted opening statement, Senator Marcos asked, “If your brother is being accused, would you hand him over to others?” She then claimed that Duterte’s arrest amounted to slavery, not justice, because it involved a foreign court. The message was unmistakable: family loyalty trumps state and legal responsibility.
Her colleague, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada—son of former president Joseph Estrada—echoed the point. He criticized the decision to bar Vice President Sara Duterte from visiting her father while he was held at Villamor Airbase. For both senators, the real issue was not due process or international law, but the perceived insult to a powerful political family.
This is the narrative Duterte loyalists are pushing: that his arrest is not about accountability but about a power struggle between two political clans—the Marcoses and the Dutertes. In this version, the ICC is merely a tool the Marcoses have cleverly used to eliminate a rival.
The government panel at that hearing, for its part, responded with a different argument—one rooted in legality and international obligation. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla led a capable team that calmly defended the constitutionality of the arrest and the validity of the ICC warrant of arrest. He explained that the Philippines, by signing and ratifying the Rome Statute in 2011, accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC over certain crimes. Although Duterte announced a withdrawal in 2018, the treaty obligations remained valid until the withdrawal took legal effect in 2019. But, more crucially, the Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that the ICC still has jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed while the Philippines was a member.
Beyond international treaties, Philippine domestic law itself (specifically Republic Act No. 9851, passed in 2009) affirms the country’s commitment to international justice. That law permits the surrender or extradition of individuals to international courts when warranted. These are not vague principles; they are binding commitments.
But, for all its clarity, the government’s legal argument lacks the emotional force of the Duterte camp’s appeal to loyalty and wounded pride. This is what makes the situation dangerous. The law’s authority will always be weak in a society where family status remains the principal source of power and legitimacy.
Yet this could be a turning point.
By allowing Duterte’s transfer, the Marcos administration has implicitly admitted what many have long known: that our own justice system failed to hold Duterte accountable for the thousands of killings during his brutal drug war. Remulla’s acknowledgement of the ICC as a “court of last resort” for the families of victims of the drug war is a quiet but radical shift. He recognized that our institutions indeed failed, and clearly had no intention, to deliver justice on their own.
This recognition must not stop at words. If the government is serious about upholding the rule of law, it must now confront the system that allowed Duterte’s abuses to happen—and which continues to protect the powerful. That means not only cooperating with the ICC but rebuilding our courts, police, and prosecutorial systems to serve the public rather than political families.
Duterte’s arrest is not the end of a battle; it’s the beginning of a reckoning. The question is no longer whether family power will challenge the law. It’s whether we are finally ready to build a social order where the law stands majestically above families.
