Former senator Leila de Lima has welcomed the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) move to file charges against ex-president Rodrigo Duterte, calling it a turning point in the pursuit of accountability for thousands of deaths linked to his bloody campaign against illegal drugs.
“I welcome the charges filed by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court against former President Duterte for the crime against humanity of murder. This serves as a milestone in the process of exacting accountability for the crimes committed in Davao City by the DDS and during the drug war all over the Philippines by the so-called ‘national network’ of death squads, both created and organized by Mayor, then President Duterte,” de Lima said in a Facebook post.
The ICC formally charged Duterte with three counts of crimes against humanity, alleging his involvement in at least 76 murders—19 when he was Davao City mayor, 14 during the early phase of his presidency, and 43 more in so-called clearance operations between 2016 and 2018.
De Lima, a long-time critic of Duterte and his drug war, noted that the “wheels of justice” began moving as early as 2018 when the ICC Office of the Prosecutor launched a preliminary examination into drug-related killings. “As early as then we already warned Duterte to stop the killings or he will inevitably face justice before the ICC, no matter how far off in the future,” she stressed.
“That future we warned him about is now the present we are witnessing,” she added, underscoring that Duterte ignored repeated cautions from human rights advocates.
Duterte has been in ICC custody since March 2025 following his arrest in Manila. His legal team has argued he is unfit to stand trial due to alleged cognitive impairments, while the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber weighs his fitness to proceed.
For de Lima, Duterte’s indictment is the culmination of years of warnings he chose to disregard. “His detention and indictment for the drug war killings are the direct consequence of his own actions. As we have said again and again, he has no one to blame but himself. His co-conspirators will follow him to the Hague soon enough,” she said.
