SO THE BIG news last week was former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s arrest and incarceration at The Hague.
I have personally become ambivalent towards Duterte over the years. I don’t care about his drug war, but I generally approve of his rise as a counter-elite figure in Philippine politics.
However, I also disliked his foreign policy, especially the results of his attempts at reaching out to the People’s Republic of China. So, I consider myself relatively non-partisan with regard to the former President.
That said, I oppose his arrest and detainment by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Firstly, I think Duterte’s arrest and imprisonment is not entirely about human rights or extrajudicial killings. I suspect a lot of politics have driven the circumstances of his arrest.
The Duterte clan has been causing a lot of problems to a lot of powerful people, so the arrest and shaming of their patriarch can only weaken them. Moreover, I found it strange that China made a speech supporting Duterte shortly after his arrest, making the whole matter feel more complicated than it really is.
Secondly, I think sending Duterte to the ICC undermines national sovereignty. He is accused of crimes against Filipinos. Let him be tried by Filipinos. Sending him to be tried by foreign courts may spare the government the trouble of trying to face down Duterte supporters, but it undermines the country’s sovereignty, and sovereignty can best be described as having the ability to make a decision. It is the basis of all notions of freedom and power in a state.
By handing PRRD to The Hague, we have effectively delegated the Republic’s power to them. In theory, this means asking impartial and totally unbiased human rights lawyers to investigate and try Duterte.
In practice, though, it means asking a bunch of European Union and foreign bureaucrats (many of whom are hated by their own kind) to resolve what should be a Filipino matter./PN
