Vol. VI, No. 5 - March 15, 2025
The arrest and trial of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in the International Criminal Court is a significant victory for the Filipino people who have long clamored for justice and retribution for the tyrant’s countless crimes during his six-year reign of terror as president, and more as mayor of Davao City.
Despite his arrest, the struggle for justice continues. The Filipino people continues to demand the conviction and punishment of Duterte and his principal military and police cohorts. They continue to pursue their quest for justice for the thousands of victims of unjust killings committed by military, police and vigilantes under the guise of the so-called war on drugs and the brutal and bloody political crackdown unleashed by Duterte’s regime.
The arrest of Duterte was long delayed because Marcos, who allied himself with the Dutertes in the 2022 elections, had publicly opposed cooperation with the ICC. The Marcos-Duterte “Uniteam” alliance, however, began to fracture in mid-2023. This Marcos-Duterte conflict heightened further as Marcos pushes to consolidate and monopolize political power, with the start of mid-term elections and the impeachment of Sara Duterte last February 5, 2025.
The cooperation of the Marcos administration with the Interpol to effect Duterte’s arrest is also a testament to Marcos’ political opportunism, making it serve his strategic aim to undermine the Dutertes and their scheme to return to power in 2028. Nonetheless, this does not negate the fact that the arrest of Duterte is a major outcome of the continuing demand of the people to hold Duterte to account for his crimes.
Under Marcos, the same repressive policies of Duterte and attacks against the revolutionary movement continue. Extrajudicial killings, abductions and enforced disappearances, as well as aerial bombing and strafing, especially in thousands of villages which Marcos ordered to be placed under military rule, remain rampant. Many of these crimes have been documented during the hearings by the International People’s Tribunal held in Brussels in May 2024. Since then, several scores of new cases of extrajudicial killings of civilians have been recorded.
The arrest of Duterte emboldens the Filipino people to pursue their struggle for justice and human rights. Amid the continuing bloody crimes perpetrated by state forces, the Filipino people are ever more determined to hold Marcos, like Duterte, accountable for the grave crimes that continue to be committed with impunity by military and police forces behind the veil of the Marcos policy of “counterinsurgency” and “national security.”
With Duterte now set to be tried by the ICC, a new frontier of struggle emerges for the Filipino people. Calls to rejoin the International Criminal Court have been put forward and are being amplified, as it serves as an important recourse for the Filipino people to hold accountable all past and future tyrants and their accomplices.
The ultimate recourse for the Filipino people, however, remains to wage revolutionary struggle to overthrow the tyranny of big bourgeois compradors, big landlords and bureaucrat capitalists. Only by putting an end to the fascist state that employs terrorist violence to perpetuate the oppressive and exploitative semicolonial and semifeudal system, can their aspiration for genuine freedom and social justice be fully realized.