Villegas on Duterte’s arrest: Pinoys ‘should widen space for sobriety’
Former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s initial appearance took place on Friday, 14 March 2025, at 14:00 hours (The Hague local time), before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”). ©ICC-CPI
MANILA, Philippines — Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas has urged Filipinos to “widen the space for sobriety” following the arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte, which he said has caused divisiveness nationwide.
Villegas also called on Filipinos to “pause and examine” their sources of facts, emphasizing that Filipinos have been consuming “many polluted wells of fake news, blind sentimentalism, vulgarity, violence, and mob rule.”
“Such polluted drinks poison our spirit and slowly cause the decay of morality and the loss of rationality in our society,” Villegas said in a statement on Saturday.
“As if we do not have an excess of reasons to be divided as a nation, here is fate giving us another explosive situation that has added more fragmentation to our already highly divided nation,” he added.
“With sobriety hopefully comes critical thinking. So much misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information are in cyberspace. The only basis for our words and actions must be the truth and nothing else. Satan divides by fomenting lies,” he further said.
He likewise pointed out that this is what the “devil wants and mission” to “crush unity and fracture our wholeness.”
“It is not the will of God for us to be divided. The devil wants us disunited and splintered. The mission of Satan is to crush unity and fracture our wholeness. We have lost the ability to love as we argue,” Villegas said.
“We have even given up reason and intelligence as we argue. We have shaken away our responsibility for the truth as we disagree with one another. This is tragic for us. It leads to hell on earth, not redemption,” he added.
In line with this, Villegas called on Filipino Catholics to “take responsibility for what we have become as a nation instead of blaming others.”
“We all have contributed to this pandemic of criminality and sin. Let us begin with self-critique and open ourselves to a new kind of patriotism based on faith not on ideology or partisan politics. The path to heroism begins with contrition,” the Catholic leader said.
“Let us not allow the Prince of Lies and Division to rejoice. Instead, let us hear the word from the transfiguration mountain: Listen to my Son,” he added.
Last March 11, Duterte was served an arrest warrant from the ICC for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during his administration’s bloody drug war.
Based on reports, Duterte’s war on drugs left at least 6,000 people dead; however, human rights groups reported that the number may have reached 20,000.
