Tearful families of drug war victims hail Duterte’s arrest

Prayers of thanksgiving mingled with quiet sobs on Tuesday as family members of people slain during former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war gathered for a mass celebrating his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity.

Widows and mothers carefully placed framed photographs of their dead husbands and sons in front of the altar at the Sacred Heart Parish in a Manila suburb, casualties of a crackdown that activists say killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men.

The women said Duterte’s arrest on Tuesday morning by police serving an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant was an “answered prayer.”

Father Flaviano Villanueva, a Catholic priest and fierce opponent of the drug war, recalled in his homily the despair the relatives felt while waiting for justice, likening news of Duterte’s arrest to a long-closed prison cell finally being flung open.

“I hope this arrest will pave the way for the complete healing of our country, for people to remember that justice will prevail,” Villanueva told AFP after his sermon.

Luzviminda Dela Cruz, whose 19-year-old son was killed by police after a raid on a relative’s house in 2017, told AFP she felt relieved that “my son has now achieved justice”.

“I feel a kind of happiness that I cannot explain. I have been praying for this every day,” said Dela Cruz, who wore a sky-blue shirt printed with the word “justice.”

Duterte was president from 2016 to 2022 and ICC prosecutors in The Hague say the number of those killed in his drug war ranges from 12,000 to 30,000.

He and his lawyers have questioned the legality of the ICC warrant but Duterte has also said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his actions while president.

For Sofia Joveres, a widow who participated in the mass, Duterte’s arrest was “proof that the Lord listens to us,” although she said she was “not completely happy.”

“I honestly don’t feel that happy because, even if Duterte was arrested, it can’t bring back the life of my husband that they heartlessly took away in the drug war,” the 45-year-old said through tears.

Joveres said her husband was forcibly brought out of their home in the capital by about a dozen uniformed and plainclothes police officers in 2016.

She said her neighbours told her that police ordered her husband to run as fast as he could before gunning him down.

Joveres said one of her prayers in Tuesday’s mass was for Duterte to own up to his responsibility and pay for the crimes committed in the name of his drug war.

“It’s important that Duterte admits that, because he was the root of all the pain and violence that we endured,” Joveres said.

The Duterte government had a long-standing policy of refusing to cooperate with the ICC probe, saying it lacked jurisdiction and infringed on the country’s sovereignty.

Duterte instructed his government to pull out of the ICC’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, after the tribunal began looking into allegations of systematic extrajudicial killings during his rule.

However, the tribunal ruled that alleged crimes committed before Manila’s withdrawal from the treaty in 2019 remained under its jurisdiction.

Current President Ferdinand Marcos refused to resume ICC membership after he was elected in 2022, with Duterte’s daughter Sara as his vice-presidential running mate. He also continued to rule out any cooperation with the ICC probe.

However, Marcos’s stance shifted subtly as the alliance between the two powerful families unravelled. He said Manila would comply, under its obligations as an Interpol member, if the ICC sought Interpol’s help in arresting Duterte.

When the drug war case was first filed in the ICC, Duterte insisted the tribunal lacked jurisdiction and that he would only be willing to be arrested and tried in a Filipino court.

Duterte told hundreds of cheering supporters at a rally in Hong Kong on Sunday that his actions during the drug war were meant “to provide a semblance of peace and quiet” for Filipinos and everything he did was “for my country.”

He also said he would “accept it” if he were arrested.

Agencies