Going deeper into the circumstances that led to the surrender of former President Rodrigo Duterte to the clutches of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which the Palace keeps denying, the best reference would be the international tribunal itself.

The official line is that the administration has been consistent in its policy of non-cooperation with the ICC, which the country is no longer affiliated with, but that the government has obligations to the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).

The ICC supposedly asked Interpol to enforce the arrest of Duterte that Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Director Maj. Gen. Nicolas Torre III acted on.

In every communication the ICC issued on taking Duterte into custody, the operative word was always “surrendered.” Nowhere in the ICC documents did it say that it had sought the assistance of Interpol in enforcing the arrest.

The Palace gave the excuse that the request was only between the ICC and the Interpol bureau in Manila, which happens to be a unit under the PNP. The Manila bureau supposedly issued a Red Notice, a global announcement about a wanted crime suspect, on Duterte.

Strangely for such a high profile case, the Interpol website made no mention of any action taken against the former President.

The ICC’s timeline on the release of the warrant of arrest for Duterte showed the Palace has been lying all along regarding its non-cooperation spin.

In the document, “Prosecution’s urgent application under Article 58 for a warrant of arrest against Rodrigo Roa Duterte,” on 10 February, Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang indicated to the tribunal a “realistic but time-limited possibility of securing Duterte’s arrest.”

He mentioned that in “late January 2025, the (Philippine) government publicly stated that it would execute an ICC arrest warrant if a request to do so is made through Interpol.”

A redacted space then followed which had a footnote on a document that was not made available. It was followed by a warning from Niang, “Should this eventuate, the prospects of arresting Duterte will likely disappear.”

Niang then made an urgent appeal to the ICC to “authorize the Prosecution to communicate — in consultation with the Registry — the existence of the warrant of arrest, as well as the information contained in the Conclusion section of the warrant of arrest, containing the name of the suspect as well as the alleged crimes for which the arrest is sought, to any State or international organization for the purposes of the execution of the warrant of arrest, including to obtain relevant intelligence.”

Niang also sought authority “to transmit, in prior consultation and coordination with the Prosecution, a request for the arrest and surrender of Duterte to the competent authorities of the Republic of the Philippines (via Interpol if necessary) and any other relevant State identified in consultation with the Prosecution.”

The actions of the ICC, including the prosecutor being made aware of a window to arrest Duterte, couldn’t have happened without coordination with local authorities.

Indeed, the claim that the action taken on Duterte by Torre came about after receiving the supposed Interpol request to enforce the ICC decision at 3 a.m. on 11 March is another brazen lie since the sealed copy of the arrest warrant should have been in their possession sometime in February considering the urgency that the ICC prosecutor indicated.

As the ICC termed it, prize catch Duterte’s arrest happened after he was “surrendered.”

Had the process been in accordance with international law, the Palace should discard its pretensions about “being consistent” with its policy on the ICC.

Duterte was forcibly abducted and sent into exile in The Hague, where his captors know there is a chance he may never return to the Philippines.