Speaking to reporters in The Hague on Tuesday, Vice President Sara Duterte pushed back against a wave of online posts asserting that the International Criminal Court would soon free her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The posts, she said, had twisted remarks from a recent appearance at a London rally, claiming she had told the crowd her father would walk free within a week. She denied ever making such a statement.
“I didn’t say anything in my speech that PRD would be out next week. I don’t know where that started,” she told journalists in a chance interview outside the tribunal.
She pointed anyone doubting her to the court’s own records. “We all know, and we can see the schedule of his case on the website,” she said, noting that nothing on the ICC’s public calendar points to any hearing on his release.
The only proceeding currently listed, according to the vice president, is the opening of her father’s trial, set for November 30.
The elder Duterte remains in ICC custody facing three counts of crimes against humanity connected to the anti-narcotics campaign he oversaw as president. Official government tallies place the death toll from that campaign at roughly 6,000, while rights groups put the figure above 30,000 — a count that includes victims as young as three years old.
The rumor Sara Duterte addressed is one of many that have circulated since her father’s March 2025 arrest. Rappler and other fact-checkers have repeatedly flagged fabricated claims about his supposed release, including a doctored quote card, an AI-generated photograph, and spliced news footage.
