Sara Duterte believes she’s on ICC arrest list

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 International Criminal Court 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. (AFP)

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte said she believes she is on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest list.

“Nasa listahan ako. Marami. Marami kami na nasa listahan ng ICC (I’m on the list. Many of us are. There are many of us on the ICC’s list),” said Duterte in a recent chance interview in Carcar City, Cebu.

Duterte explained that she believes this to be the case after she claimed that her conversations with her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, currently detained by the ICC in The Hague, were being recorded during her visits. 

“Dahil ang akala nila (ICC), ang pinaguusapan namin ay kung ano ang kaso at ano ang ginagawa natin sa kaso dito sa Pilipinas at mga strategy ng kaso,” she said.

 (Because they thought that what we were discussing was the case itself, what we were doing about it here in the Philippines, and the strategies related to the case.)

The vice president, however,  said she believes that others—particularly Senator Ronald dela Rosa, former Philippine National Police chief Oscar Albayalde, police generals Vicente Danao and Romeo Caramat Jr., and Senator Christopher “Bong” Go—would be arrested before her.

“Mauuna muna sila, bago ako (they will go first, before me),” she said.

The ICC currently has custody of the elder Duterte after he was arrested and sent to The Hague for crimes against humanity allegedly committed during his administration’s war against drugs, which resulted in the death of at least 6,000 people, although human rights groups reported at least 20,000.

READ: War on drugs: The violence, scars, doubts and families it left behind 

Months before the former president’s arrest, former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV said Vice President Duterte would be named as the tertiary accused in the ICC’s arrest warrant, with her father as the main accused and Dela Rosa as the secondary accused.

READ: ICC in PH last Dec; arrest order vs Duterte soon – Trillanes