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Only on his 80th birthday, Rodrigo Duterte, a man who ever swore to clear his country through a bloody drug and crime campaign, He has found out to be surrounded and is in custody.
The former president was greeted by the Philippine police when he arrived in Manila on a flight from Hong Kong, where he gathered support for his candidates for the upcoming mid -term elections among the great Philippine Diaspora there.
A very speaking order for his arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC) turned out to be in the hands of the Philippines government, which quickly moved to execute it.
Mr. Duterte, who was walking with a stick, was moved to the air base at the perimeter of the airport. A drawing plane was quickly ready to take him to the MHC in The Hague.
How did this happen? How was a person so powerful and popular, often called “Trump of Asia,” was so low?
In vain, his lawyers and family members protested that the arrest had no legal basis and complained that the Dutner’s health was disadvantaged.
While in his post, Dutterte has formed an alliance with the Marcos family – the children of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who has long worked on a political return. Dutterte could not run again in the 2022 election, but his daughter Sarah, mayor of the southern town of Dado, was also a popular and strong contender to replace him.
Ferdinand’s son Marcos Bongbong, who has been in politics throughout his life, was also well placed to win very well funded.
The two families made a deal. They will work together to get Bongbong to enter the presidency and Sarah to the Vice-Presidency, suggesting that the next 2028 elections are coming, its turn will come and it will have a great Marcos machine behind.
Works. They both won their position with a big margin. Duttertea expected his union to protect him from any blow because of his controversial presidency after he was not out of power.
The most serious threat he hangs over him was an investigation by the ICC for his guilt for thousands of out -of -court murders committed during campaigns against medicines he ordered – after he became president in 2016, but also during his term as mayor of the southern city of Dado since 2011.
Mr. Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the Jurisdiction of the ICC in 2019, but prosecutors claim that they still have a mandate to examine the alleged crimes against humanity previously committed and have launched an official investigation in 2021. However, President Marcos said he initially stated that his government would not cooperate with MC.
This position changed only after the dramatic breakdown of Duterte-Markos Alliance. The arrests in their relationship were obvious from the most recent days of the administration, when Sarah Duterte’s request to gain control of the powerful Ministry of Defense was rejected and it was given to the Ministry of Education.
President Marcos also distanced himself from his predecessor’s mercurial policies, repairing fences with the United States, facing China in contested seas and stopping blood threats to retribution against drug dealers.
In the end, these were two ambitious, powerful clan to dominate Philippine politics and did not have enough power to share. Relationships reached Nadir last year when Sarah Duterte announced that she had hired a killer to kill President Marcos if something happened to her.
At the end of last year, the lower house of Congress, which is controlled by Marcos’s loyalists, submitted a petition for the impeach of the Duterte. This process should be carried out in the Senate later this year.
If it is obstructed, according to the Constitution, she will be forbidden to hold a high political position, killing her long -standing presidential ambitions and weakening the political power of the Duterte.
Now President Marcos has moved skillfully to neutralize his main political rival. But his strategy is not riskless. Duthers remain popular in most of the country and may be able to mobilize protests against the pursuit of the former president.
Sarah Duterte issued a statement accusing the government of handing over his father to “foreign forces” and for breaching the Philippine sovereignty.
The early test of support, with the benefit of the two clans, will be the medium -term elections in May.
In his comments to the journalists, after the plane, bearing his predecessor, he took off from Manila, President Marcos insisted that the country’s commitments were being fulfilled in Interpol, which he had delivered the ICC. But he is fighting for the fact that this is an order for the ICC he enforces, given that many Filipinos will question the compensation of the ICC in a country that has already left her jurisdiction.
It is not risk -free for ICC either. The court is a built -in institution these days, with the Trump administration threatening to arrest its senior officials if they travel to the US, and few countries ready to extradite those who have been charged. Therefore, receiving former President Duterte in The Hague may seem like a welcome success.
But there was a warning from China – of course he did not sign the ICC and currently in the logs with the Philippines – not to politicize the affairs of the ICC. It was a slimly struck reference to the fact that this case, which is supposed to be from the accounting for serious international crimes, ultimately plays a decisive role in the domestic feud in the Philippines between two rival political forces.
