Philippines’ Marcos refuses to hand former President Duterte to ICC for drug war

• Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign, which began in 2016, has resulted in thousands of deaths.
• The ICC’s chief prosecutor requested to reopen the inquiry in January 2023, and pre-trial judges approved the request.
• Marcos also stated that the US will not receive access to additional Philippine military bases.

On Monday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos stated that he would not surrender his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating his deadly drug war.

Under Duterte’s leadership, the anti-narcotics campaign, which began in 2016 and has persisted under Marcos, has led to the deaths of thousands of people.

When asked on Monday if he would hand Duterte—who has accused him of being a drug addict—to the ICC if it issued a warrant for his arrest, Marcos responded with a firm “no.”

“We don’t recognize the warrant that they will send to us. That’s a no,” he said at a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

“We are well within international law when we take the position of not recognizing the jurisdiction of the ICC in the Philippines,” Marcos said.

In 2019, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC after the Hague-based tribunal began investigating allegations of human rights abuses committed during his drug war.

The ICC launched a formal inquiry into Duterte’s crackdown in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila announced a re-examination of several hundred cases of drug operations resulting in deaths caused by police, hitmen, and vigilantes.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor later requested to reopen the inquiry, and pre-trial judges at the court eventually approved it in late January 2023 — a decision that Manila appealed shortly afterward and lost.

Official data released by the Philippines indicates that anti-drug operations under Duterte resulted in the deaths of more than 6,000 people. ICC prosecutors estimate the death toll to be between 12,000 and 30,000.

Marcos has repeatedly rejected the possibility of rejoining the court and has insisted that it lacks jurisdiction in the country because there is a functioning judicial system.

In the past two years, relations between the Marcos and Duterte families have deteriorated.

Following a massive social media misinformation campaign whitewashing his family’s history, Marcos, the son and namesake of the country’s former dictator, won the 2022 presidential election by a landslide.

His vice-presidential running mate, Sara Duterte, the daughter of the former president, aided in securing crucial support from her family’s home island of Mindanao.

In recent months, the families have experienced a very public falling out as they have started to solidify their rival support bases and secure key positions ahead of the mid-term elections in 2025 and presidential elections in 2028.

NO ADDITIONAL US BASES:

Marcos also stated that the US would not receive access to additional Philippine military bases.

In response to a question, Marcos affirmed, “The answer to that is no. The Philippines has no plan to open or to establish more EDCA bases.”

Last year, Manila announced the locations of four additional military bases that it is permitting the US military to use, in addition to the five agreed upon under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, known as EDCA.

The deal permits US troops to rotate through and store defense equipment and supplies.

The four additional bases include sites near the hotly disputed South China Sea and another not far from Taiwan.

Marcos made his remarks during a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, which was attended by members of the Philippine military and foreign diplomats.

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