Robert Reid | Chairperson FFPS
On March 11, 2025, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is investigating him for crimes against humanity. The warrant and subsequent arrest are a victory of the Filipino people and their pursuit for justice.
The US-backed Duterte government (2016 – 2022) gained international infamy through its extremely bloody “war on drugs,” which was essentially a war on the poor. His administration was responsible for more than 30,000 extrajudicial killings, including those of minors. Duterte also cracked down on all form of legal activism and dissent, effectively establishing de facto martial law in the Philippines.
These grave human rights and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violations were further exposed by the overwhelming amount of evidence presented by the Filipino people to the International People Tribunals (IPTs) of 2018 and 2024, to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), as well as other venues. These findings were supported by the international community through investigations during International Fact Finding Missions and peoples’ initiatives such as Investigate PH.
With Duterte’s arrest there comes an urgent responsibility for the international community to help the Filipino people ensure he does not escape justice. As a former president backed by the US, his deep-rooted connections to US imperialism, the military and the broader Philippine political landscape through his political dynasty pose a risk to achieving full accountability. Despite the contradictions between the 2 ruling factions—which have become more glaring in the lead-up to the 2025 mid-term elections—Marcos has consistently shielded Rodrigo Duterte from prosecution since the beginning of his own presidency, likely fearing a similar fate for himself. His actions make him complicit in Duterte’s prolonged avoidance of arrest. We must be vigilant of any efforts to escape justice and sustain pressure for Duterte’s immediate prosecution and conviction.
Moreover, the current US-Marcos administration has maintained and even expanded all of Duterte’s tools of fascist state violence, including the Anti-Terror Law, National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and the “whole of nation approach” which were key machineries of the Duterte government used to commit various war crimes. These institutionalized red-tagging, mass arrests, abductions, and extrajudicial killings, particularly targeting activists and criminalizing all forms of dissent. Under the whole-of-nation approach, all aspects of the state are geared towards becoming an instrument in its “war against terror” and integrated under the military’s decision-making. Currently, there is de-facto martial law in the Philippine countryside as the US-Marcos administration perpetrates intensified militarization, aerial bombings, hamletting, extrajudicial killings and other war crimes. In the past month alone there were reported aerial bombings and indiscriminate strafing by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Oriental Mindoro and Bukidnon as part of the so-called “counterinsurgency”.
Thus, there is also an urgent need to strengthen the international isolation of Marcos as another war criminal as bad as Duterte.
The 2024 International People’s Tribunal underlined the continuation of war crimes against the Filipino people from the US-Duterte to the US-Marcos government. An overwhelming amount of evidence found both regimes guilty of war crimes and highlighted the complicity of the U.S. in these IHL violations.
As we continue to sustain pressure for Duterte’s immediate prosecution andconviction, we must also intensify our efforts to counter Marcos’ crimes, exposing that he is waging a brutal war on the Filipino people under the name of “counterinsurgency”, implements anti-people policies and programs, and serves as a loyal agent to US imperialism.