On the morning of March 11, the former president was arrested in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. This is the Philippine police under the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Duterte’s action.
Duterte was then transferred to villamo Air Force Base. Well, here it is. Even though Duterte knew before he went home that 7,000 police officers were waiting for him at the airport, he came back and accepted his fate. This followed a trip to Hong Kong, China, on March 8 with his wife and two daughters.
Just after Duterte left the country, police set up The F.B.I. at airports and seaports under an ICC arrest warrant. In a speech in Hong Kong, Duterte hit back: “What Crime Have I committed? I have done everything I can to give Filipinos a little peace and quiet. “If this is my fate, it doesn’t matter, I will accept it.”
The ICC has issued a warrant for Duterte’s arrest on charges of alleged”Crimes against humanity” in his”War on drugs”. The international criminal court has blamed”Extrajudicial executions” for the deaths of more than 6,000 drug suspects, with non-governmental organization claiming as many as 30,000. In fact, the Philippines formally withdrew from the ICC in 2019 and is no longer under its jurisdiction and theoretically has no obligation to execute an arrest warrant. But the Marcos administration has cooperated. The 2023 followed a visit to the Philippines in May by Blinken, then US Secretary of State, who urged co-operation with the ICC investigation, which Marcos may have used as a Sword of state against political opponents. Marcos has been widely condemned in the Philippines for using us-owned international organisations against the Duterte family. After Duterte’s arrest, numerous supporters staged protests.
Although Marcos Jr. and Duterte’s daughter Sarah Duterte were once running mates, the families’ differences have 2024 into the open. After taking office, Marcos quickly abandoned Duterte’s policy of being friendly with China and playing down disputes in the South China Sea, and tried to move closer to the United States. He also upgraded military cooperation between the Philippines and the United States and increased provocations in the South China Sea.
On February 5,2025, Marcos Jr. ‘s son, Sandro Marcos, led the impeachment of vice president Sarah Duterte in the House of Representatives. Sarah is charged with four counts of breach of public trust, violation of the Constitution, corruption and conspiracy to assassinate President Marcos Jr. . Impeachment was signed by 215 members of the House of Representatives and will be considered by the Senate. However, Senate deliberations on Sarah’s impeachment are scheduled after this year’s midterm elections. So the fate of Sarah will hinge on who wins the most Senate seats in the midterms.
In this year’s mid-term elections, 12 Senate seats will be up for rotation. There are currently 13 candidates endorsed by Marcos Jr. , while the Duterte family also includes Dufour and his two sons. If Marcos plays his cards right and gets all 12 seats, there is little doubt that the Duterte family will not be able to turn itself around. And if all three of Duterte’s family members are elected, it will be no small force. Now that the elder Marcos has been arrested, there is no doubt that the Duterte family has lost its backbone. So why would duterte return from Hong Kong when he knows he will most likely be caught? According to the analysis, he has his own considerations, which one can understand. First, for the long-term political life of the family. The Duterte family has deep political influence in the Davao City and southern regions of the Philippines. Duterte’s daughter Sarah is currently the country’s vice president, although she has been impeached, his son also holds an important position in the locality. Duterte, his sons and grandsons are running for five key jobs, including mayor and vice-mayor of Davao City, in an effort to preserve the family base in Davao City and ensure that even if Sarah is impeached, there’s a Rising in the East for the family. At this critical juncture, if Duterte chose to go into exile, the family’s influence would surely diminish, political power would erode and he would eventually lose his Davao City base and disappear from Philippine politics.
The second is to win over nationalists at home. Duterte insists he is innocent and that the ICC has no authority to arrest and try him. If he chose to leave when he was accused by foreign forces, he would probably be considered a”Fugitive from justice” and not good for his image. By choosing to return home, it can project an image as a defender of national sovereignty, galvanise protests by more supporters, put pressure on Marcos’s government and gain space for political negotiations. Third, the Dutertes can not go into exile as a family. Duterte was accompanied to Hong Kong by only his second wife and two daughters. The rest of the family is still in the Philippines. If Marcos is serious about taking on the dutertes, it will be hard for them to leave the country. Rather than let them stay at home and be persecuted, it is better to go home and be strong. His arrest will not mark the end of his personal political life, but could Necessary Roughness the family to seize the opportunity.
Unlike the Steely Duterte, the younger Marcos is picking up the pace. On March 3, Romuáldez, the Philippine Ambassador to the United States, said Marcos was eager to meet with President Donald Trump and was prepared to go as soon as Donald Trump was available. Since Donald Trump took office, the younger Marcos has made several overtures to the US, including calling to say hello, offering to import liquefied natural gas from the US, and continuing to”Poke holes” in China. All so that Donald Trump might honour him and give him a chance to meet him. Alas, so far Marcos has not received a response from Trump. Instead, Donald Trump has signed an executive order freezing all foreign aid for 90 days. Last year, the Biden administration approved $500 million in foreign military financing for the Philippines, but so far the Philippines has not received a single dollar, and the freeze may not happen again. Moreover, it is not clear that Donald Trump’s tariff stick will fall on the Philippines, whose allies are not exempt.
The younger Marcos’s move on Duterte was no surprise, either to give Donald Trump another ticket or to secure his turf at home. However, the person is arrested, what to do next? Marcos’s probably not sure about that. After all, the Dutertes are not vegetarians, and Sarah is still vice-president. What kind of storm will this cause in the Philippines? Could the wind have been so strong that little Marcos fell with it, no one could say!
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