Senator Imee Marcos on Thursday vowed to bring former president Rodrigo Duterte back to the Philippines, following a meeting with the latter’s lead counsel.
“Thank you Atty. Nicholas Kaufman. Together, we will bring PRRD home,” Senator Marcos said in a statement on Facebook, along with a photo of Kaufman shaking her hand.
Senator Marcos met Nicholas Kaufman, Duterte’s lead defense counsel in his crimes against humanity case before the International Criminal Court (ICC), during a recent visit to The Hague, Netherlands.
Fresh from winning another six-year term in the Senate—backed by Vice President Sara Duterte—Senator Marcos affirmed her support anew for the embattled former president.
“I told VP Inday Sara Duterte that, more than anyone else, I know what it feels like to be separated from one’s own country. That’s why from the very beginning, she has known what’s in my heart regarding the unacceptable fate that befell PRRD,” she said.
“But we are not here to be dramatic—we are here for solutions. We are here to act,” she added.
Senator Marcos, reeling from her personal experience, said a Marcos has “learned from the history,” an apparent reference to their family’s exile in Hawaii following the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution.
“I did not wait 39 years just to make the same mistake again. There is a Marcos who has learned from history. I am here not for one person, but for the Filipino people,” she added.
Imee, her brother President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the rest of the Marcos family fled to Hawaii after the peaceful demonstration at EDSA that ended the 21-year regime of their father, the late president Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
During the final years of Marcos Sr.'s rule, the Philippine economy hit record lows—contracting by 7.3 percent in 1984 and by 6.86 percent in 1985.
Marcos Sr. placed the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981, a period often described as the “darkest era” in Philippine history due to rampant corruption, extrajudicial killings, and human rights violations.
Duterte, meanwhile, was arrested on March 11 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport upon returning from a trip to Hong Kong. On the same day, he was transferred to The Hague, Netherlands, where the ICC is based.
He is suspected of murder qualified as a crime against humanity, allegedly committed in the Philippines between November 1, 2011 and March 16, 2019.
Government data estimates at least 7,000 deaths under Duterte’s drug war, but local and international human rights groups claim the actual number could be as high as 30,000.