ICC case vs Duterte and Bato a colossal deception

THE International Criminal Court (ICC) case accusing former president Rodrigo Duterte, as well as Sen. Ronaldo (“Bato”) de la Rosa and several others, is a colossal deception. Worse, going by the latest Feb. 26, 2026 prosecutor’s charge sheet, included in the indictment are Sen. Christopher (“Bong”) Go, Duterte’s justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre, and six other police officials who worked under the former president.

That so many, especially in mainstream media, are so gullible as to fall for this deception is not really surprising, as there have been several huge hoaxes which also created hysterical mobs like those we see now in the case of Bato’s escape:

– The 1968 Corregidor “massacre” that turned out to be then-senator Benigno Aquino Jr.’s fabrication in order to unmask President Marcos’ plan to foment chaos in Sabah;

– Marcos’ Sr.’s claim that he imposed martial law “to save the Republic” from the Left and the Right;

– The impeachment of the late Chief Justice Renato Corona, purportedly because he was corrupt but which was actually President Benigno Aquino III’s operation to remove him so that the Yellow president’s Cojuangco clan could get billions of pesos in compensation for its Hacienda Luisita being put under agrarian reform;

– And very recently Marcos Jr.’s claim in 2024 that his administration completed 5,500 flood control projects, which were later revealed to be ghost projects through which contractors and government officials, including members of Congress, pocketed at least P200 billion.

I find it so sad that our chattering class and even the intellectual elite have easily fallen for this newest hoax, when hard facts easily reveal it as a fabrication.

The putschist Antonio Trillanes, his Magdalo comrade Gary Alejano, and the lawyer he recruited, the late Jude Sabio, in 2017 asked ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to investigate Duterte for mass murder during his term as Davao City mayor and in the course of his war against drugs during his presidency.

Propaganda

The original propaganda thrust of Trillanes, whose hatred of Duterte is explicable only if the US is his puppet-master, was that the president had amassed a huge amount of ill-gotten wealth, and was keeping billions in deposits at the Bank of the Philippine Islands. The BPI itself said this was nonsense. So Trillanes turned to another tack — accusing Duterte of committing crimes against humanity.

The ICC, of course, ignored Trillanes’ preposterous accusation until prosecutor Fatou Bensouda was suddenly tasked with conducting a full investigation of the charges in June 2021. Bensouda’s main justification, according to ICC Document No. ICC-01/21 of June 14, 2021, was that “The total number of civilians killed in connection with the War on Drugs between July 2016 and March 2019 appears to be between 12,000 and 30,000.” Bensouda claimed this was the result of Duterte’s state policy, and constituted “crimes against humanity.”

These figures, as well as the timing of Bensouda’s move to investigate the case, are revealing. This was after the figure of 30,000 was manufactured first by the Duterte-basher Rappler (which at that time received heavy funding from US entities, including the National Endowment for Democracy), and then by US-based writers (such as Sheila Coronel), and then repeated again and again the Hitlerian tactic by leftist human rights groups, US media and Communist Party front organizations.

The Philippine National Police’s figures of deaths in the course of the war on drugs from 2016 to 2022 were just 6,252. Other efforts to make an account of those killed, such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s “Kill List” and an Ateneo project funded by Columbia University, came up with similar figures.

The plot for the ICC to convict Duterte as having committed crimes against humanity was the joint project of the following actors:

First, the US, which was retaliating against foreign policy stance of liberating the country from US vassalage and drawing it closer to China. At that time, his daughter Sara appeared to have the best chance of winning the presidency and would have continued her father’s foreign policy that she might even kick out the five US military bases Aquino III had allowed. It was therefore imperative for the US to get Duterte convicted by the ICC which could weaken his and his daughter’s political base.

Second, the Communist Party, as Duterte undertook an intense campaign to dismantle its New Peoples Army and front organizations. But with the ferocity of the campaign against Duterte by the CPP’s cadres in the House, I suspect they are also being compensated by the Marcos gang for their participation in the mob.

Break-up

Third, after Marcos Jr.’s break-up with Sara Duterte in late 2023, Duterte’s daughter emerged as the shoo-in for the presidency in 2028, blocking any plot of the Marcoses to continue in power. If Sara becomes president, Marcos, his wife and even their son could be spending the rest of their lives in prison, as reports of their massive corruption have been circulating, with some, such as former Ilocos governor Chavit Singson, claiming to have evidence of this.

Recent developments have made the ICC conspiracy crucial to stopping Sara. The ICC ordered Senator de la Rosa captured and, according to sources, for Senator Go to be also arrested. If the Marcos government surrenders them, they would be whisked away to the ICC prison at The Hague.

The pro-Marcos bloc in the Senate is demanding that senators must be physically present to vote. Bato and Bong “incapacitated” would in effect reduce the pro-democracy bloc from 13 to 11, weakening it to such an extent that just two senators defecting to the Marcos camp (for P1 billion?) would give Marcos control of the Senate, which can manipulate Sara’s impeachment trial for her to be convicted, and ineligible to run for president in 2028.

Very hard facts can so easily debunk the ICC case:

The ICC’s “mandate” is to prosecute crimes against humanity, and the 30,000 that it claimed were the victims of Duterte’s war on drugs in 2022 placed it in such a category. But how many were the actual victims, as alleged in the ICC’s “Document Containing the Charges” dated Feb. 13, 2026, which was the basis for the warrants of arrest against Duterte, de la Rosa and several other officials? 78.

That’s no typo, seventy-eight, or a measly 0.26 percent of the 30,000 allegedly killed that justified an ICC charge of “crimes against humanity.”

Nineteen of these were during Duterte’s term as mayor of Davao City from 2011 to 2019. It is preposterous that proof and evidence for these alleged killings exist. Indeed, the prosecutor in these cases relied solely on alleged dubious whistleblowers.

59 victims

That leaves only 59 victims allegedly killed during the war on drugs that Duterte undertook as president. And out of these, 45 victims were killed in the so-called “barangay clearing operations” and 14 “high-value target killings.”

Fifty-nine killed, and the ICC prosecutor claims Duterte’s government committed “mass murders” and crimes against humanity? Contrast that to the 60,000 killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for which warlord Germain Katanga was convicted by the ICC, or the 300,000 deaths in Sudan, for which one leader there, Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, was found guilty by the ICC.

The ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor probed alleged killings in Duterte’s war on drugs for six years, and it could only find 59 victims. Many of these cases were investigated by the Justice Department and the Philippine National Police, and in half of the cases, the responsible policemen were convicted and jailed, while in the remaining half, there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the police. These were documented in the September 2022 reply of the Philippine Office of Solicitor General when it was headed by Menardo Guevarra to the ICC prosecutor.

More importantly, ICC prosecutors have not produced any document that shows Duterte had ordered the killing of these 59 persons in his war on drugs. These 59 account for 0.94 percent of the 6,252 that the PNP claims were killed in the war on drugs from July 2016 to May 2022. Doesn’t that very small percentage represent the killings by a small group of rogue policemen, which exists in every police force?

Contrast that 59 allegedly killed summarily during Duterte’s administration to the 6,000 deaths in police interventions in Brazil, or the 1,000 to 1,250 people killed by police in the US since 2015.

For such nonsense, Marcos ordered a former president to be forcibly put on a plane and flown to the Netherlands, for him to be conveyed by the Dutch National Police to the ICC’s detention facility, where he will most probably be languishing for the next eight years, the shortest period that the ICC has ever resolved a case. And some commentators and even National Bureau of Investigation head Melvin Matibag are saying that Senator Bato “should just face justice”? “Justice,” or at least eight years in jail until a group of foreigners takes its time to decide on the case?

One Inquirer columnist, a self-declared nationalist, even wrote a column that assumes that Senator Bato is guilty, writing: “The man who oversaw a drug war that killed thousands could not summon the nerve to face a single warrant.” Nerve to agree to be jailed for years by a foreign court? A Philippine Star columnist couldn’t hide his glee over the injustice being meted on the senator, headlining his column: “Hey Bato, sh*t is coming.” Yet he couldn’t see the contradiction in his claim: “32 cases will be tackled for trial to prove his crime against humanity.”

Such abject surrender of our sovereignty is the worst crime Marcos will forever be known for, and people like that columnist are participants in such abomination. Marcos has weaponized not just the NBI and the Ombudsman but also, amazingly, the ICC.

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ICC case vs Duterte and Bato a colossal deception
Source: Breaking News PH