Sara Duterte says father never blamed her for his ICC arrest

Vice President Sara Duterte addresses people gathering outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on March 14, 2025, as former President Rodrigo Duterte appears for the first time before the ICC to face crimes against humanity charges. The 79-year-old faces a charge of “the crime against humanity of murder,” according to the ICC, for a crackdown that rights groups estimate killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs. (Photo by Nicolas TUCAT / AFP)

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte on Wednesday said her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, never blamed her for her alliance with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as the cause of his arrest on orders of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

READ: Duterte’s ICC arrest: Separating fact from lies

She made the pronouncement when asked if her father ever told her that it was due to her alliance with Marcos during the 2022 elections that ultimately led to him being arrested and detained in The Hague Penitentiary Institution or the Scheveningen Prison.

“Ever since, he never said anything like that to me. Even when I ran as vice president, he never said anything like that to me,” she said in a mix of English and Filipino in a recent chance interview in The Hague.

Marcos and Vice President Duterte were running mates in the 2022 elections under the UniTeam brand, but the pairing broke up following a heavy political feud between the two camps.

The possibility of ever mending the partnership further ceased after the ICC ordered the arrest of former President Duterte for crimes against humanity he allegedly committed during his administration’s war against drugs.

The ICC first announced that it would investigate Duterte and his alleged crimes way back in 2018, just a month before Duterte announced that the Philippines would be withdrawing from the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC.

While the Dutertes and their allies questioned his arrest and accused the Marcos administration of cooperating with the ICC even when the Philippines was no longer under its jurisdiction, Marcos said the government was merely cooperating with the International Criminal Police Organization in enforcing the ICC’s arrest warrant for Duterte.

The Palace and other legal experts also argued that the ICC retained its jurisdiction over crimes committed when the Philippines was still a member of the Rome Statute.

The war against drugs led to at least 6,000 people dead, but human rights groups reported that at least 20,000 were killed.