On 11 March 2025, Philippine authorities arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte in Manila and transferred him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. This development follows the warrant of arrest issued by the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I and transmitted through the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).

Former President Rodrigo Duterte is accused as an alleged indirect co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, and rape, committed in the Philippines between November 2011 and March 2019. During this period, Mr. Duterte served as Mayor of Davao City (2013-2016) and as President of the Republic of the Philippines (2016-2022). Soon after his election in 2016, he launched a “war on drugs,” a contentious campaign that allegedly constituted a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population” and led to the deaths of an estimated 12,000 to 30,000 civilians, according to the ICC.

This is deeply personal for me. For almost seven years, I was imprisoned on fabricated charges, accused of crimes I did not commit — all because I dared to speak out against Duterte’s drug war. While I was behind bars, thousands of Filipinos were killed without justice, their families left to grieve with no answers, no accountability.

Today, Duterte is being made to answer — not to me, but to the victims, to their families, to a world that refuses to forget. This is not about vengeance. This is about justice finally taking its course. - Former Senator Leila de Lima (Philippines), PGA Member. Credit: Rappler

This arrest marks the first time a leader in Southeast Asia has been indicted for human rights violations by the ICC, offering hope to communities of victims in the Philippines and beyond. It reaffirms the ICC’s role in delivering justice for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, as the Court is often the only avenue for survivors to obtain justice and reparation.

Challenges in achieving accountability

The scale of extrajudicial killings and other alleged crimes against humanity perpetrated in the Philippines during Duterte’s presidency led the Office of the ICC Prosecutor to open a preliminary examination in 2018. In response, then-President Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the Rome Statute – a decision that took effect on 16 March 2019. At the time, PGA Members expressed deep regret and opposition, warning that this action was “depriving the Philippines’ population from a guarantee of a culture of justice, legality and human rights as a basis for peace and security” and denouncing the “unwillingness of the President of the Philippines to address the grave violations allegedly committed by the Governmental sponsored death-squads,” according to the words of former PGA Members Senator Leila de Lima and Senator Antonio Trillanes IV. Despite the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the ICC retained jurisdiction over crimes committed while the Philippines was a State Party. Consequently, the Court was able to continue investigating the situation for crimes that occurred up to 16 March 2019.

Subsequently, the government of the Philippines requested a deferral – a procedure enshrined in the complementarity principle, according to which the ICC may only exercise its jurisdiction when a “State is unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution” (Article 17 of the Rome Statute). As a result, the Office of the ICC Prosecutor’s investigations were temporarily suspended. However, the ICC assessed that the Philippines authorities’ investigations (which only resulted in eight convictions of low-ranking police officers for five extrajudicial killings) were not sufficiently relevant,  nor proved that the Philippines was making a genuine effort to carry out such investigations and subsequent criminal prosecutions. Therefore, the Office of the Prosecutor was granted the authorization to resume its investigation in 2023.

PGA Members engagement

Since 2005, PGA has collaborated with its members in the Philippines, whose efforts and commitments contributed to the country’s ratification of the Rome Statute on 30 August 2011. This milestone was achieved just a week after the Senate’s overwhelming adoption of the ICC Ratification Bill by the Senate of the Philippines. PGA Members, the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, and Senator Loren Legarda played a fundamental role in this achievement. Senator Legarda also facilitated a crucial briefing by the former President of the ICC in the Senate of the Philippines in March 2011, reinforcing support for ratification.

Following the notice of withdrawal from the Rome Statute, PGA provided legal assistance to six opposition Senators, including PGA members Sen. Leila De Lima and Sen. Antonio “Sonny” F. Trillanes IV, with drafting a petition which was filed on 16 May 2018, requesting the Supreme Court of The Philippines to declare the withdrawal "invalid or ineffective" and compelling the Executive to cancel, revoke, or withdraw the notification of the withdrawal, which was deposited on 17 March 2018 to the United Nations Secretary-General. 

Despite the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute in 2019, PGA Members in the country remained committed to upholding universal values and human rights. Such dedication had significant repercussions for former Senator Leila de Lima, who was arbitrarily imprisoned in February 2017 for speaking out on human rights abuses, including leading a Senate inquiry on extrajudicial killings related to the “war on drugs.” PGA repeatedly called for her immediate and unconditional release. After more than seven years of arbitrary detention, during which she continued to serve her parliamentary mandate, she was acquitted in June 2024. Undeterred, today, she remains a vocal advocate committed to the fight for accountability and upholding international justice.