How ICC chamber decided that Duterte must face trial

UNDER PRESSURE: The former president’s blood pressure is being monitored at the Villamor Air Base lounge, in this photo posted on Instagram by his daughter Kitty Duterte.

MANILA, Philippines — A Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a warrant of arrest for former President Rodrigo Duterte after it found sufficient basis to hold him “individually responsible’’ for murder as a crime against humanity.

It found Duterte to be an “indirect coperpetrator” of the crime since he had control over law enforcement agencies in the ruthless war on drugs he waged as Davao City mayor and later as President.

READ: The fall of ‘The Punisher’: Rodrigo Duterte’s path to the ICC

Official figures put the deaths during the anti-drug campaign at more than 6,000 since Duterte took office as president in 2016 until 2022. Human rights groups, however, had a much higher estimate of more than 20,000.

Citing information from the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), the chamber said it found basis to believe that the murders committed involved at least 19 supposedly “drug pushers or thieves” killed by members of the Davao Death Squad, commonly referred to as “DDS,” in multiple areas in or around Davao City.

At least 24 others, alleged to be drug pushers, users, and thieves, “were [also] killed by or under the supervision of members of the Philippines’ law enforcement [agencies], sometimes with the assistance of persons who were not part of the police,” at various locations nationwide.

With these findings, the pretrial court pointed to Article 7 of the Rome Statute, the international founding treaty of the ICC, to tag the drug war a “widespread or systemic attack directed against the civilian population.”

The chamber stressed that the issuance of the arrest warrant was “necessary” to ensure his presence before the international tribunal and the security of the witnesses and victims of drug war killings.

ICC jurisdiction

“Mr. Duterte, even though no longer the President of the Philippines, appears to continue to wield considerable power,” according to the 15-page warrant dated March 7, 2025, signed by Presiding Judge Iulia Motoc and issued in the ICC headquarters in The Hague in the Netherlands.

The arrest order was in response to the “urgent application” for a warrant filed by the OTP on Feb. 10 because Duterte was alleged to be liable for the following crimes against humanity: murder, torture and rape.

However, the pretrial court dropped the allegations of torture and rape from the arrest warrant for having insufficient basis.

Addressing the issue of jurisdiction, the chamber recalled that, ‘[w]hile the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Statute took effect on 17 March 2019, the Court retains jurisdiction with respect to alleged crimes that occurred [in] the Philippines while it was a State Party, from 1 November 2011 up to and including 16 March 2019.”

It further noted that the court’s jurisdiction and mandate were exercised under the provisions of the Rome Statute to which the Philippines was a party at the time of the alleged crimes for which the investigation was authorized.

“By ratifying the Statute, the Philippines explicitly accepted the jurisdiction of the Court, within the limits mandated by the treaty […]. These provisions and the ensuing obligations remain applicable, notwithstanding the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Statute,” it stressed.

Killing machinery

Pointing to Duterte’s “individual criminal responsibility,” the Pre-Trial Chamber said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that the elements of crimes against humanity of murder took place in the Philippines under his watch and while the country was still a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty binding ICC members.

As president and leader of the notorious DDS during his mayoral years in Davao, Duterte “acted with intent and knowledge” when he used police officers, tagged as the direct perpetrators, as “tools to commit the crimes,” it said.

The “violent acts” arising from Duterte’s directives, it read, were perpetrated by the DDS and different government agencies and authorities “pursuant to a policy aiming at putting an end to the criminality in the Philippines by all means, including killings of alleged criminals.”

In his role as head of the DDS, which was initially formed as “Lambada Boys” in 1988, the former mayor had “de facto control” over it, with “physical perpetrators at the bottom and Mr. Duterte at the top of the reporting line.”

This was compounded by his influence and power over the city police and its units, the pretrial court said.

“The members of the DDS automatically complied with their directions, even those that were merely implied. Their fungibility is shown by the fact that the DDS killed some of the physical perpetrators who did not follow their orders,” the warrant read.

After being elected President in 2016, the chamber noted that Duterte brought “coperpetrators” from Davao City who were involved in the drug-related murders to high-level positions at the national level, such as the Philippine National Police and Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

“Those who committed the material elements of the crimes understood that they did not have the liberty to disobey orders from Mr. Duterte to kill suspected criminals,” the chamber emphasized, adding that the “low-level perpetrators” were at the mercy of superiors who were promised protection even as they ended up as the fall guy, or worse, dead.

Such “fungibility” — or the replaceable nature of the subordinates who did the dirty work — “can be inferred from the fact that they were killed or prosecuted as scapegoats to ensure that the high-level perpetrators enjoy immunity.”

Mitigating factors

Among Duterte’s other “contributions to committing the alleged crimes” that the chamber cited were the following:

• designing a project targeting alleged criminals, especially those involved in illegal drugs, called “Double Barrel”;
• equipping the DDS with firearms, ammunition, vehicles, and safe houses
• directing and “authorizing violent acts” against alleged criminals, including suspected drug dealers and users, and offering incentives, promotions, and immunity from prosecution and investigation to police personnel and “hit men”

The court said he also “condon[ed] and promot[ed] the killings in speeches and statements while “dehumanizing alleged criminals” in his public exposé of drug suspects, some of whom eventually died during police operations.

The term “neutralize,” which was used by Duterte on official orders and documents, was also interpreted by the court to mean an order “to kill.”

“Mr. Duterte, jointly with high-ranking government officials and members of the police force (the coperpetrators) and through other persons, agreed to ‘neutrali[z]e’ individuals they identified as alleged criminals or individuals with criminal propensities, including but not limited to drug offenders, initially in Davao and subsequently throughout the country,” it pointed out.

It continued: “The word ‘neutrali[z]e’ was used and understood by those involved in the operations to mean to ‘kill.’ This agreement had the aim of ‘address[ing] the growing criminality’ by ‘kill[ing criminals] in a very covert and secret manner’ without ‘stick[ing] to the basic law enforcement or investigation.’”