Filipino human rights activists, victims oppose Duterte interim release

LOS ANGELES - Filipino human rights activists and victims and families of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s extra-judicial killings are strongly opposed to his petition for interim release before the International Criminal Court.

“Along with Duterte’s victims and families of extra-judicial killing, red tagging, we oppose all machinations that allow him to evade accountability for his crimes including the motion for interim release filed with the  ICC pre-trial chamber,” said San Francisco native Brandon Lee, chairperson of the International Coalition of Human Rights in the Philippines-USA.

Lee became paraplegic after having survived red-tagging and an assassination attempt from the Duterte military while working among the indigenous peoples of Ifugao in August 2019. He said: “We want accountability and justice and Duterte should not be accorded special treatment given the gravity of his crimes.”

“There is no cogent reason for Duterte's interim release and transfer to a different country,”said Fr. Benjamin Alforque, one of the conveners in the Philippines of Rise Up for Rights and for Life, network of families and advocates and victims of extra judicial killings in the drug war.

“There is no urgency. There is no humanitarian basis. There is no legal basis. There is no moral basis,” since “the charge of crimes against humanity is so grave that the perpetrator must be kept in confinement, in prison,” Alforque added.

It is “for the safety of the victims and their families, for the preservation of the integrity of witnesses and evidence, for the security of the person of the perpetrator and to further cut the tentacles and dismantle the instruments of such grave and vast crimes,“ according to Alforque, who is now based at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Riverside in the Diocese of San Bernardino.

After having served as priest in Mindanao, the native of General Luna, Surigao del Norte analyzed that “the positions of Duterte from mayor to president have given him so much power as to build a massive machinery for extra-judicial killings and all other crimes attendant to this gross human rights violations of tyranny.”

Furthermore, Alforque said that “to keep him in prison is advantageous to him from a moral perspective,” having all the chances to review his life and revisit his use of power to commit such crimes against humanity while in solitude in detention.

“Bringing him out of prison even temporarily will not save his soul,” the priest said adding that Duterte now has all the opportunities develop a more profound  moral conscience, to learn to repent and seek forgiveness from the wronged, to seek and accept the terms of justice defined by the victims.  

Meanwhile, the Philippine Coalition for the International Criminal Court has made the appeal as it “expressed strong opposition and grave concern over any proposal or consideration for the interim release of Duterte as the group stands firm in its call that there should be “No special treatment, no interim freedom for those accused of crimes against humanity. “

Duterte, currently detained at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands for crimes against humanity in connection with his war on drugs which resulted in the deaths of about 30,000, has asked for an interim release and transfer to an undisclosed state or country.

In a statement signed by co-chairs Dr. Aurora Parong and Atty. Ray Paolo Santiago, PCICC said that “Justice must not be deferred. Impunity must not be enabled” since “the gravity and scale of the alleged crimes, which include widespread, systematic extrajudicial killings, make continued detention the only justifiable course of action.”

The conditions for an interim release are “categorically not met,” the PCICC added saying that  Duterte’s “political influence in the Philippines signals a clear and credible risk of flight and interference with justice.”

“Justice must be done not only in the courtroom, but in the eyes of the families, the PCICC said that denying the request would uphold the principles of accountability and deterrence.

According to the PCICC, which played a crucial role in the Philippine signing of the Rome Statute of the ICC in December 2000, “any assurance of compliance would require exceptional enforcement capacity and unwavering political will, thus making the State complicit to enabling impunity and obstructing international justice.”

Under the Rome Statute, an interim release is an exceptional measure permitted only when the detained  is low risk of flight; no danger to victims, witnesses, or the integrity of proceedings; and the availability of a State willing and able to enforce strict conditions of release.

The PCICC said that aside from his long-standing hostility toward the ICC, Duterte had repeatedly refused to recognize its jurisdiction and thus, cautioned any third State that may consider hosting Duterte must seriously weigh the legal, political, and moral burden of vouching a former head of state suspected of grave international crimes.

The PCICC has earlier asked the Philippine government to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of killings during police  drug operations, especially cases that occurred from March 17, 2019  up to the present which are not covered by the ICC case.

“No one should be left behind,” the PCICC said that the government must act immediately on many unfinished business to prevent further killings and ensure accountability in the War on Drugs.

The killings must be stopped immediately and President Marcos Jr is urged to withdraw Operation Double Barrel and declare that all deaths in relation to drugs must be investigated and self-defense and regularity of police operations must be decided by a court of law, PCICC said.

As of March 16, 2025, there were 914 killed in relation to drugs under the Marcos government as monitored by the Dahas Project of the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center.

Lee also said that “the same crimes under Duterte continue until the Marcos government which include drug-related killings, red tagging and terror tagging through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict,”  adding that “they are getting away unchecked murder and I am hoping this signals to Marcos what is happening to Duterte if he does not stop the killings.”

Emphasizing the important role of civil society in pushing the Philippine government to rejoin the ICC, Lee said that this will ensure Rome statute to be enforced to ensure accountability and justice.