SCUTTLEBUTT

Vice President Sara Duterte said the government’s admission that a so-called “welfare check” was surreptitiously conducted on her father confirmed that the ICC had allowed agents of the government that abducted him to intrude on his privacy and exploit his frail and compromised health.

“This is nothing less than an abuse of power against a vulnerable individual,” she said.

Duterte revealed that their family received credible information from hospital sources that the former president had to be subjected to laboratory tests after he was found unconscious on the floor of his room.

“The family was not informed of the ‘accident’ and no explanation was given. These alarming developments raise grave concerns about the capacity of the ICC to guarantee the security and safety of FPRRD,” she said.

“Even the most basic care for an ingrown toenail that is easily treatable cannot be done swiftly. The ICC has persistently ignored the clear need for a 24-hour bedside caregiver,” the Vice President added.

She said the continued detention of her father under such troubling conditions was not only “unjust but inhumane.”

“It amounts to punishment without having been convicted of any crime,” she said.

Duterte pointed out that if the ICC was true to its mandate of being a court of justice, it cannot turn a blind eye to the health and wellness of the former president.

“To deprive an elderly man — abducted, denied his rights under Philippine law, and subjected to surveillance disguised as welfare checks — of basic dignity and proper care is not justice, this is cruelty,” she said.