Speaking to reporters at The Hague, Vice President Sara Duterte laid out a wish that has weighed on her family as her father’s detention drags on: that former President Rodrigo Duterte, whenever his time comes, breathes his last in the country he once led rather than in a foreign cell.
The 81-year-old former leader is being held at the International Criminal Court’s detention facility in the Netherlands, where he faces charges of crimes against humanity linked to the killings carried out under his administration’s war on drugs.
His daughter did not shy away from the grim arithmetic of his age and confinement. She said the family had already confronted the prospect that he might not leave the detention center alive, and that the former president himself had prepared for it.
“As a Filipino, as a daughter, we want him to die on Philippine soil. There is always a possibility that he will pass inside the prison, and that is something that I already discussed with former President Duterte. That is why he gave his instructions in case he dies in prison,” the Vice President said.
