Link to Article: https://apnews.com/article/philippines-president-rodrigo-duterte-international-criminal-court-cfc234f22120aefd95248f2785a34b4a
Philippine ex-President, Rodrigo Duterte, who will leave behind a disturbingly successful legacy of en-masse deadly anti-drug crackdowns, has been arrested and is being charged by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in the anti-drug war he raged throughout his entire political career. His arrest by the ICC has caped the end of an internal investigation held b the Philippine government in tandem with the ICC that has spanned well over a decade and beyond. This all comes to light as he was most recently in the news for supposedly self-exiling himself to Hong Kong to evade arrest and the charges mounted against him, only to return to Manila and be arrested on sight by Philippine officers due to the ICC warrant out for his arrest.
A career politician, Duterte had served as a congressmen, mayor, president and was a criminal prosecutor. His career was primarily built off outspoken comments of the west, the Roman Catholic Church, and wealthy elites of the Philippines. As mayor of the city of Davao at the dawn of the new millennium, he issued police-enforced crackdowns against drugs, having upwards of ten thousand killed by his police and civilian militia crackdowns during his time in Davao. This all plays a role in Duterte’s statement to the public prior to his arrest, when he was in Hong Kong, claiming his actions were to aiming to give Filipinos peace, and stability amongst corruption, organized crime and mass drug smuggling efforts.
This remains important both to the rest of the region of East Asia, and to the Philippines itself, primarily due to the outlasting effects it could have on the reputation of the Filipino government if Duterte is seemingly sent to life in prison, with his actions having both irreparably killed thousands, and not helped any of the situations he claimed it would in his home country. China could very well use this to impose further internal turmoil as the Marcos administration and its popularity ratings are spiraling down following drug problems only worsening, with safety being a key concern.
As stated prior, this internal turmoil that China may and very well induce could be in the form of militia groups or organized crime, should it choose to go that route, or even that of propping up a political figure that will align itself further with the eastern bloc under China, aiming to sweep the Philippines away from the west, and the hand of the United States and its allies.