Is ICC aware of the truth?

We are in uncertain times. Our national coffers are empty, our food security hangs in limbo and is dependent on importations, dissent is stifled, and former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the man who lay down his life against criminal syndicates and saved the country from becoming a narco state, has been arrested purportedly based on a warrant of arrest from the International Criminal Court in the Netherlands.

Duterte will turn 80 on the 28th of March. Physically frail, his spirit is however strong and cannot be intimidated by warrants of arrest whatever the source. He is willing to face his accusers confident that whatever the outcome this will alter the doomsday course of the country back to normalcy.

It’s an eerie coincidence — Duterte adored by zillions with unprecedented trust ratings despite his exit from the presidency three years ago is now in a prelude to his own Ides of March. Remember how Julius Caesar was killed by traitors he believed were friends?

What is the crime of Duterte? He was charged with crimes against humanity that was filed by Jude Sabio who later recanted, saying it was purely politics. Despite this, the ICC pursued its probe on the basis of the alleged murder of 6,000 victims in the course of Duterte’s war on drugs during his presidency.

The figures later ballooned to 30,000 after it was extrapolated by Rappler’s Maria Ressa and former Commission on Human Rights chairperson Leila de Lima. They factored in the extrajudicial killings by the Davao Death Squad which they attributed to Duterte when he was mayor of Davao City.

Both claims are farcical. The DDS was a phantom force created by then Davao Integrated National Police Regional Commander Col. Dionisio Tan-Gatue Jr. in the early 1980s. The EJK victims were also a figment of the imagination of De Lima as over 20 years had elapsed and she had yet to produce a single piece of evidence. Was the ICC listening or aware of this?

Indeed, there were innocent victims who were caught in the crossfire; moreover, the policemen involved were charged in court and were sentenced. Duterte’s campaign against drug syndicates could, in fact, hardly be categorized as a crime against humanity for, on the contrary, millions were rehabilitated and drug syndicates were neutralized. Was the ICC listening or aware of this?

His war against drugs was focused on the drug syndicates and drug lords, never on the civilian population which he precisely vowed to protect. If he remains trusted and loved by his countrymen it is because of his unrelenting crusade against syndicated crime which eventually led to peace and security in places that used to be the lair of thugs and crime syndicates. Was the ICC listening or aware of this?

From a distance I watched helplessly how the policemen detailed to arrest Duterte behaved. Sen. Bong Go and the former president’s personal doctor were not allowed entry into the NAIA. It was heartrending to see Duterte’s daughter, Kitty, trying to protect her weak father from the policemen he had willingly staked his life for — never mind his efforts to double their and the AFP’s salaries.

Kitty watched her dad, a former president, turned over by the government to a foreign authority and forced to board a chartered jet. Her elder sister, Vice President Sara Duterte, declared that the conveyance of their father to a foreign country is an affront to Philippine sovereignty and an insult to every Filipino.

While a petition for a temporary restraining order was filed in the Supreme Court, the enforcer of the Interpol order, CIDG Gen. Torre, would rather obey the foreigners’ demand obviously in obeisance to orders from his Chief in Malacañang. In the shadows of the foreboding night a private plane with the frail and ailing former president Duterte took off from NAIA on the way to The Hague.

Does the incumbent leadership think they can sleep well after they got rid of Duterte? Will Washington DC allow a dictatorship to emerge anew in the foremost bulwark of democracy in this part of the planet?

As I write this piece, our beloved mayor of Davao City may be clutching his pillows in his detention cell in The Hague of wintry Netherlands. We feel his pain. At this point we absorb inspiration, strength and courage from Veronica “Kitty” Duterte, the younger daughter of our mayor-president whom we call “Tatay Digong,” when she said:

“I watched my dad struggle, but I never saw him give up, that’s the man who inspires me.”