Supporters of detained former President Rodrigo Duterte gathered outside the International Criminal Court detention facility in The Hague on Friday, June 20, 2026, to celebrate Father’s Day in honor of the man they call “Tatay Digong.”
Photographs shared on the Facebook page Alvin & Tourism showed a hand-painted banner reading “Happy Father’s Day Tatay Digong,” flanked by hearts and mounted above rows of white roses. A life-sized cardboard standee of the former president stood beside the display. Other images showed members of the Filipino community gathered along the roadside for a shared meal, a familiar scene at what supporters have informally named “Duterte Street,” the gathering area outside the detention center in the Scheveningen district.
The Father’s Day gathering follows a pattern of community events held at the site throughout Duterte’s detention. In March, his son, Davao City 1st District Representative Paolo “Pulong” Duterte, joined supporters outside the detention center to mark the former president’s 81st birthday, an event that volunteers had spent weeks preparing. According to Rappler, the Facebook page PRRD Volunteer in The Hague coordinated flower donations for that celebration and later said contributions had funded more than 20,000 flowers, a figure the outlet noted it could not independently verify on site.
Duterte, now 81, has been detained at the ICC detention center in Scheveningen since his transfer to the Netherlands in March 2025. He faces charges of crimes against humanity in connection with the thousands of killings carried out during his administration’s “war on drugs,” a campaign he launched after taking office in 2016 and that he had previously waged as mayor of Davao City. The ICC investigation covers alleged crimes committed between November 2011 and March 2019, the period before the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute took effect.
His detention is set to continue. On May 22, 2026, ICC Trial Chamber III ruled that Duterte must remain in custody, rejecting his defense team’s renewed bid for interim release. The chamber found no change in circumstances warranting his release, noting that the April confirmation of all charges against him increased the risk that he might abscond. Duterte’s lawyers had argued that his health justified release, citing what they described as frequent falls due to a loss of balance, but the chamber said reports from three court-appointed medical experts contained no information requiring a modification of his detention.
The former president has consistently rejected the court’s authority over him, declining to attend his confirmation of charges hearing and maintaining that the ICC lacks jurisdiction. His case is now headed toward a full trial.
