Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s defense team unveiled its strategy at the opening of the confirmation of charges hearing at the International Criminal Court (ICC), and it does not bode well for the Marcos administration.

Delivered unfiltered to a global audience — something unlikely in a domestic courtroom — defense lead counsel Nicholas Kaufman’s opening statement pulled no punches, portraying Duterte’s surrender to the ICC as the result of a political operation orchestrated by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The lawyer explained how Marcos and the ICC conspired for a politically motivated persecution rather than the pursuit of justice for the crimes against humanity allegedly committed by Duterte.

By accusing Marcos of colluding with the ICC to abduct Duterte, Kaufman claimed the President betrayed a “written promise” — that was shown to the court — not to cooperate with the international tribunal.

Kaufman’s strategy extended beyond dismantling the allegations that Duterte had orchestrated a murderous drug war, moving to challenge the ICC’s legitimacy directly.

Kaufman used the word “kidnapping” to portray Duterte’s arrest and transfer to The Hague as unlawful and illegitimate under international law.

Duterte’s arrest in March 2025, following the issuance of an ICC warrant, involved coordination among Interpol, Dutch authorities, and Philippine law enforcers. Kaufman explicitly tied this to Marcos, saying the government “surrendered its sovereignty and dignity” by facilitating the process, effectively collaborating in what he called a kidnapping.

The Marcos administration insisted that it did not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction after the country withdrew from the Rome Statute in 2019. It attributed Duterte’s arrest to an International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) red notice, which it said was a separate international commitment.

Proof of receipt of the supposed red notice was never made public. Much later, the administration indicated that the arrest was made based on a “red diffusion,” which was supposedly an internal Interpol communication.

The ICC opened a preliminary examination into the “war on drugs” in 2018, prompting Duterte to pull the Philippines out of the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty. The exit became final in 2019.

The ICC, however, claimed jurisdiction over crimes committed while the country was a member state, and its investigation continued despite the exit. Demolishing this argument is key to the Duterte defense’s strategy.

Under Marcos, the government’s stance toward the ICC probe evolved from outright rejection to a more ambiguous position.

Initially, Marcos echoed Duterte’s reason for leaving the ICC, vowing non-cooperation and calling the probe a “threat to Philippine sovereignty.”

By 2024, amid escalating political tension between them, Marcos signaled openness to the ICC probe, stating that he would not block it if Duterte “wanted to be investigated.” He also said he was putting the country’s reinstatement in the ICC “under study.”

This shift by Marcos facilitated Duterte’s eventual arrest, which Kaufman framed as a deliberate “neutralization” of his client’s legacy.

Kaufman also repeatedly accused the prosecution of “cherry-picking” inflammatory and bombastic rhetoric from Duterte “to suit its narrative,” while ignoring speeches that “tempered” Duterte’s language with calls for lawful conduct.

He described Duterte as a “unique phenomenon” whose “hyperbole, bluster, and rhetoric” were characteristic of his style, often exaggerated for effect and not literal instructions to murder.

His language made Duterte a “natural target” for “privately funded NGOs and human rights activists,” who amplified sensationalized media reports with “dramatically illuminated” crime scene images and headlines “lifted straight out of a James Bond movie,” Kaufman said.

“His rhetoric was calculated to arouse fear and obedience, to instill fear in their hearts, and to inculcate a respect for the law in their minds. Nothing more, nothing less. That was his intent, and it was not criminal,” he added.

Some international organizations cited reports of alleged drug war killings and linked these to Duterte’s policies, helping draw global attention and mobilize funding primarily for monitoring efforts.

Kaufman said the defense had found many other speeches in which Duterte explicitly tempered his bombastic language by clearly referring to the principle of lawful self-defense.

The defense’s opening statement summarized what it described as a conspiracy to marginalize Duterte and erase his continued strong appeal to the common Filipino.