While Fennell's film anchors itself in Bronte's narrative landscape, it also takes creative liberties in service of approximating the director's personal experience reading it as a teen.
MANILA: How did longtime Davao City mayor and former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte , once known as “The Punisher,” end up in the custody of the International Criminal Court ? Nearly a year after his arrest and turnover to the ICC , Duterte is set to face the tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, beginning Monday for the confirmation—or dismissal—of his three counts of murder as a crime against humanity .
The charges against Duterte may be traced back to the communication that the late lawyer Jude Josue Sabio filed in April 2017. This was supported by a supplemental communication filed by then Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Magdalo party list Rep. Gary Alejano. The complaint of Sabio, who was the counsel of self-styled Davao Death Squad hit man Edgar Matobato, relied on the accounts of his client and other DDS members Arturo Lascañas and Ernesto Avasola; various reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and “The Victims of the Davao Death Squad: Consolidated Report 1998-2015” by the late Fr. Amado Picardal, as well as the media. Sabio told then ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in his letter accompanying the complaint: “Crimes against humanity are crimes of universal jurisdiction, but where a State like the Philippines fails to assume such universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity continuously being committed in its very own territory, then the will have to intervene into a situation that is grave by any human standard.” Duterte was not alone in the complaint. Others alleged to have committed crimes against humanity were former Philippine National Police chief and now Sen. Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, former Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II, former National Bureau of Investigation director Dante Gierran, Senior Police Officer IV Sonny Buenaventura, former National Police Commission chief Edilberto Leonardo, former Criminal Investigation and Detection Group chief of Davao Royina Garma, former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, former Interior Secretary Ismael Sueno, former Solicitor General Jose Calida, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and former Sen. Richard Gordon.More than a year after Sabio’s complaint, a group of activists and the families of eight drug war victims lodged their own complaint before the ICC, also accusing Duterte of crimes against humanity. By then, Bensouda had already begun the Office of the Prosecutor’s preliminary examination into the extrajudicial killings after “a careful, independent and impartial review” of the situation in the Philippines. This triggered the former president to set in motion the withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the 2002 guiding framework of the ICC. In March 2018, Duterte notified the ICC that the Philippines was immediately leaving its fold. It, however, took effect a year later, or in March 2019. All this happened while Duterte was putting up a brave front and picking a fight with the ICC prosecutors, saying that he was happy to “stick his neck out” should these “idiots” decide to hang him one day, and to even confront the prosecutor on the stand should a case reach the ICC. “For the things I have said, ordered and done, I am willing to put my neck for these things. Maybe someday, this ICC, these idiots, if they decide to hang me I would be very glad to go,” he said during his speech at a campaign rally in Isabela province. Interestingly, Sabio attempted to withdraw his complaint in January 2020, citing supposed “political propaganda” of Duterte’s critics. But Bensouda said it could not simply be taken back because her office had “an obligation to register whatever it receives.” After contracting Covid-19, Sabio died in 2021. By September 2021, the Pre-Trial Chamber I gave the go signal to the prosecution to start a formal investigation into the crimes that are within the jurisdiction of the ICC. These covered the extrajudicial killings under the drug war that occurred from Nov. 1, 2011 to Mar. 16, 2019–the period when the Philippines was still a member of the Rome Statute.The time frame covered the years when Duterte was the Davao City vice mayor and the city mayor before he assumed the highest national post as the country’s president. The Philippine government made an appeal to the ICC Appeals Chamber to halt the prosecutor’s probe into the drug war, citing the lack of the international tribunal’s jurisdiction after the country withdrew from the treaty. But the chamber ultimately rejected the appeal in July 2023, paving the way for the resumption of the investigation. The Appeals Chamber ruled that the supposed investigations into the anti-narcotics campaign in the Philippines were not enough in terms of the scope of the probe. Nearly two years later, the prosecutor filed for an application seeking the arrest of Duterte for the one count each of crimes against humanity of murder, torture and rape, saying it found reasonable basis to belive that the former President is “individually responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator” in the brutal killings. All these were set in motion while being kept under the wraps as the warrant of arrest against Duterte was issued, but initially classified as “secret,” on Mar. 7, 2025. It was not until the nearly 14-hour dramatic arrest of Duterte on Mar. 11 that the existence of a warrant was made known. After landing shortly at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport from his Hong Kong trip, Duterte was taken by authorities and whisked off on a chartered plane bound for The Hague, the Netherlands. He was turned over to the ICC a day later. Since his arrest and detention, the family and lawyers of Duterte have pushed back against the ICC gaining custody over him, insisting that he was merely “kidnapped” because the international tribunal supposedly has no jurisdiction over his case. The defence team also continued to push for Duterte’s interim release, despite being denied, citing his old age and incapacity to influence or threaten the witnesses and families of drug war victims. In the arrest warrant issued by the PTC I, Duterte was charged with only one count of murder for the 43 killing incidents. The chamber dropped the charges of torture and rape due to lack of sufficient basis. The prosecution, in preparation for the confirmation of charges hearing, revised Duterte’s charges to three counts of murder for 49 cases involving 78 individuals. They include 17-year-old Kian Delos Santos, whose brutal killing sparked public outcry; and 43-year-old Benjamin Visda, who was on the drug list at the barangay level; as well as those tagged as “high-value targets,” Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa, Sr.; drug suspect Raul Yap, who was shot dead while in detention with Espinosa; and Ozamiz City Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog, Sr, who was killed in his own house after Duterte publicly declared that he was on the drug list. Police data puts the death toll of the drug war at around 6,000, but independent watchdogs estimate it to as high as 30,000. International law expert and human rights lawyer Joel Butuyan has been named as one of the common legal representatives, along with another seasoned Filipino lawyer, Gilbert Andres. Before he was appointed to represent the victims in the ICC, Butuyan had explained that The Hague-based court prosecutes as a crime against humanity the act of masterminding the policy that led to the killings, not the individual count of the fatalities. “It is a prosecution of the people who ordered the trigger to be pulled, and not a prosecution of the people who pulled the trigger,” Butuyan said in a briefing with reporters in March last year. - Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANNPenang's esplanade seawall, promenade project wins Unesco heritage awardUrgent action needed to combat synthetic drug abuse among students, says Lee Lam ThyeMake mosques centres of unity, not exclusive domain of any group, says Pahang Sultan
Rodrigo Duterte International Criminal Court ICC Murder Crime Against Humanity Jude Josue Sabio Davao Death Squad Extrajudicial Killings Rome Statute
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