The trial that will determine whether Rodrigo Duterte answers for his anti-drug campaign is scheduled for November 30, and days ahead of that reckoning his daughter used a protest outside the court holding him to argue that many of the killings tied to his name were never his responsibility at all.
Speaking to supporters gathered in front of the International Criminal Court’s detention facility in The Hague on July 29, 2026, Vice President Sara Duterte contended that the fatalities attributed to the former president’s crackdown could not be treated as crimes against humanity because it was never established that every person killed had died at the hands of the state. Her reasoning rested on the claim that lethal violence is cheap and commonplace in the Philippines.
“I have a husband. My husband has a mistress. I can hire a gunman for 5,000 pesos to kill the mistress … that is how bad gun violence in the Philippines is. And that is, again, yes, EJK (extrajudicial killing),” she said.
She pressed the point by questioning how prosecutors could assume the complainants before the tribunal were all casualties of the drug war rather than of ordinary criminality. The elder Duterte faces three counts of crimes against humanity in connection with the operation.
That framing runs against the official record. Government tallies place the confirmed death toll of the campaign at a minimum of 6,000, while human rights organizations have documented figures reaching at least 30,000 — a count that, according to those groups, includes children as young as three.
The vice president used the same appearance to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the proceedings themselves. She branded the ICC a “tuta,” or puppy, of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and former Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, calling both men traitors. As reported by Inquirer, her basis was the account of 18 Marines dubbed the “maleta boys,” who have alleged that Trillanes accepted two million dollars from former Ako Bicol congressman Zaldy Co to smooth the entry of ICC investigators into the country and to bribe the court. The Department of Justice has since cleared the way for charges against the group.
Duterte, who served as president from 2016 to 2022, was flown to The Hague in March 2025 after his arrest in Manila, becoming the first former Asian head of state to be taken into the custody of the international tribunal.
