The European officials handling the International Criminal Court’s drug war inquiry cannot be bought, former senator Antonio Trillanes IV argued — and if any party had the resources to attempt it, he said, the Duterte family would be far better positioned than he ever could be.
“They are Europeans. You really can’t bribe them. That goes to the next point: if I could bribe them, don’t you think the Dutertes can’t do it?” Trillanes said during an interview on broadcast journalist Carmina Constantino’s podcast, posted online Saturday.
“They can offer so much more than I can offer. So this is only a diversion, a distraction,” he said.
He cast the bribery accusations against him as something the Dutertes themselves set in motion, with the goal of casting doubt on whether the ICC can investigate the drug war killings independently and without bias. That doubt, he warned, could later be used by the former president’s defense counsel to weaken the case unfolding in The Hague.
To Trillanes, the math behind the accusations falls apart on its own terms. He noted that anyone trying to sway ICC officials would offer payment in Euros rather than dollars, making the alleged $2-million dollar handoff implausible. He also maintained that the probers were unlikely to be compromised at all, describing them as highly professional and the accusations against them as deeply malicious.
The former senator was equally pointed about the credibility of the accusers. He branded the claims an outright lie and said the group’s account had shifted repeatedly across its four public appearances. “Their statement keeps changing every single time,” he said.
As an example, he pointed to a reversal in where the cash was supposedly delivered. The bodyguards first said the money reached his home, he recounted, then later placed the handover at the Quezon City headquarters of Samahang Magdalo, the organization he founded with fellow retired Navy officers. “That alone shutters everything… They can’t get the story straight,” he said.
The allegations originated with 18 men presented as former aides of ex-Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, who told reporters last week that Co handed over at least $2 million — drawn from administration funds and moved through his post as former chair of the House appropriations committee — to bribe ICC investigators. The same group has claimed over time that it ferried suitcases of cash to officials aligned with the administration, naming Trillanes alongside opposition figures such as Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima and lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc. Members also said they accompanied ICC investigators during a supposed December 2023 trip to the Philippines and personally delivered two suitcases, each holding $1 million, to Trillanes for the probe.
Trillanes flatly denied taking any money from the administration, asserting that Duterte’s detention in The Hague was secured without a single peso of government help. His involvement in the case runs back years: he helped assemble evidence and press for a formal investigation into the alleged extrajudicial killings, and was among the lawmakers who lodged the original complaint with the ICC in June 2017 — the filing that opened the door to a full inquiry and, in March of last year, Duterte’s arrest.
When the group first laid out its account in a February affidavit, ICC prosecutors moved swiftly to reject any suggestion that the Philippines bankrolled the drug war probe, stressing that every investigative activity runs on a court-approved budget. Others have flagged the suspicious timing of the claims, which landed just as Duterte’s confirmation of charges hearing was set to begin.
