RODRIGO Duterte, once a Philippine president and architect of the bloody war on drugs, knew he had lost his freedom the moment he boarded that Learjet that transported him from the Villamor Airbase to The Netherlands on Tuesday.
Stripped of his privileges, he had gone from a high-ranking VIP to a mere suspect. What remained were his rights to be protected by both the Philippine and Dutch governments.
He is innocent until proven guilty, a right he denied thousands of victims of his phony anti-drug campaign, among them lawyers, priests, human rights advocates, and even children. Yes, children.
Following the verification of his identity – a process he could not face personally despite his earlier threats of physical assault against personnel of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the court has set the reading of charges against him on September 23, 2025.
It means a long wait for Duterte. The former president will turn 80 on March 28, 2025.
Trials at The Hague typically stretch to as long as eight years. If Duterte survives his acquittal, he would be a shell of his old self before he could see the light of Davao.
A maximum sentence of 30 years if he gets convicted seems impossible for Duterte to serve in full, you know what I mean. His lawyers could not make him serve his sentence in the Philippines where he would be close to his loved ones.
Duterte has no one to blame but himself as he ordered the country’s withdrawal from the ICC on March 17, 2019.
Duterte could not be sure of being granted temporary freedom by the ICC given the gravity of his cases.
He is accused of 43 murders. Nineteen of these cases were committed by alleged Duterte henchmen when he was still the Davao City Mayor, 24 were executed after he was elected president of the republic in 2016.
Why only 43? Because those who brought Duterte to the ICC think these are enough to prosecute him.
Witnesses to these murders have been secured. Some of them have talked at length before the local media and Congress when their statements were warranted.
They shared their stories which were balked at not by a few government officials then when Duterte was still in power and applauded as the truth when Duterte had lost all he got.
The odds are stacked against Duterte now. He has nothing behind him but the imagined support of the DDS.
DDS being the Lambada Boys, a group of police officers who were willing to kill for him, to the Davao Death Squad. And when he needed a shade of legitimacy, they became the Duterte Diehard Supporters.
Their numbers have broken. Their social media strength had weakened.
They called their 2016 victory a triumphant revolution. But no warm bodies are showing up now, not even when Harry Roque, Duterte’s former spokesperson, had called for another revolt. An EDSA for the non-believers of that moment in history.
Many of them are dead, victims of Duterte’s own bloody war. Their families who believed in his promise of change, got scalded by his murderous streak. The effects of Duterte and his supporters’ narratives are also waning.
He would soon get his number. Not 6,000 not 30,000 – the number of deaths in his hands, but as an ICC prisoner that he is. It’s going to be long. Too long for a once very powerful god. A murderous god.